Agents of the Kremlin

In the first month of Russia's full-scale invasion, in March 2022, Ukrainian intelligence revealed the identities of 620 Russian spies in Europe. The names of the agents, who are employees of the Russian FSB, in particular their passport data, addresses of work and residence were published on the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine website. 

In September of the same year, the German newspaper Der Spiegel wrote that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service oversees the work of about 3,000 spies abroad, and the Main Intelligence Directorate oversees about a thousand more. Most agents are disguised as diplomats.

Hundreds of Russian intelligence officers have been expelled from embassies in European capitals over the past 18 months. This has deprived the Kremlin of the necessary infrastructure of agents who could control operatives in the field or conduct their own intelligence gathering operations.

For the first time in decades, the Kremlin's highly efficient, extensive network of agents created after World War II has collapsed. Today, Russia is forced to change its tactics to preserve its spy networks. After the massive exposure of its foreign spies, the Kremlin is turning to more risky methods.

Russia is turning to sleeper cells and unofficial agents

Traditionally, Russian spy networks in Europe and around the world have been divided into several main groups:

Russian agents working in foreign embassies under diplomatic cover;

Russian-affiliated opinion leaders, officials, politicians, or celebrities who are paid to provide or disseminate information that the Kremlin needs;

Russian deep cover agents - the so-called "illegals", as a rule, are people who move to live in Europe or the United States, pretending to be from other countries and concealing their Russian origin. Such agents lead a seemingly normal life, have businesses, start families, and for decades have been building a network of friendly contacts with their environment;

"Sleeper cells". These are groups of individuals whose mission is to wait and watch, establish contacts and possibly try to gain access to people who may be targets for espionage or possess sensitive information.

Now that there are fewer Russian agents in diplomatic missions and intelligence services around the world, and it has become more expensive and difficult to recruit new ones, Russian illegal immigrants and sleeper cells are coming to the fore.

"Many Russian diplomats, spies, have been expelled. Their human resources have been reduced tremendously," explains Maxime Lebrun, deputy director of research and analysis at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, Hybrid CoE, which brings together experts from 33 different countries in Helsinki and works closely with the EU and NATO.

"So now they have to rely on ordinary Russians abroad or maybe people from other countries who can be forced to talk to someone or gather information from their workplace, possibly from a technological place," Lebrun says.

To "make up for the lack" of spies, Russia "has started to wake up some of these sleeper agents" by engaging them in work that is usually done by intelligence officers in diplomatic missions abroad.

The spy trinity

When last week the BBC published details of a report on three individuals suspected of spying for Russian security services, the UK's Counter Terrorism Unit confirmed the arrest of five such individuals in this February.

In a statement, the London Metropolitan Police said that the suspects were arrested under the Official Secrets Act 1911, which criminalizes espionage against the interests and security of the United Kingdom. However, only three of the detainees have been made public.

At first glance, Orlin Rusev, Katrin Ivanova, and Bizer Dzhambazov did not seem remarkable. The trio called themselves expats from Bulgaria with an ordinary past that could be seen in their social media profiles.

Orlin Rusev's LinkedIn profile states that he was once an advisor to the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy, and later moved to Britain and set up a business related to "intercepting communications or electronic signals."

Katrin Ivanova says that she works as a laboratory assistant in a private medical clinic, while Bizer Dzhambazov describes himself as an ambulance driver.

Katrin and Bizer, who are apparently married, also headed an NGO that helped Bulgarians moving to the UK to better understand "the culture and norms of British society."

Among the documents seized during the search of the suspects by British police officers were passports, identity cards and other documents for the UK, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece and the Czech Republic.

The case of the "spy trio" demonstrated how long and thoroughly the agents of Vladimir Putin's regime work to obtain at least some potentially valuable information.

Students with a special mission

In Norway, a Russian intelligence colonel posed as a Brazilian citizen. At the University of Tromsø, the man became a member of a research group that worked closely with Norwegian government agencies to analyze and counter hybrid threats in the Arctic region.

"This insidious aspect is extremely important to describe the kind of random people who, as students, have the opportunity to meet professors or secretaries who have received funding for a security project," explains Maxime Lebrun of Hybrid CoE.

"We've had a few cases where it didn't look like espionage, but more like surveillance of key university professors who don't even realize that their new student might be an FSB or GRU officer," Lebrun adds, "This kind of accidental espionage is very hard to spot.

However, this method yields results when soft power shapes certain narratives among the scientific community that the Kremlin needs and allows intelligence services to gather information about the direction of scientific or research activities.

A mole at the door 

A security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for violating the UK Official Secrets Act. He was arrested within a British-German sting operation and extradited to London.

The man was recruited to spy for Moscow and passed information to Russia.

David Ballantyne Smith, a 58-year-old security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin, originally from Paisley in western Scotland, pleaded guilty to eight offenses under the Official Secrets Act.

Smith worked at the British Embassy for five years. At night, he entered the embassy's offices while they were unoccupied and photographed files marked "secret", as well as arranged and recorded conversations in several "sensitive areas" of the British Embassy building.

After collecting the data, David Ballantyne Smith passed the information to the Russian military attaché in Berlin, Major General Sergei Chukhrov.

During the trial, it was revealed that Smith collected highly confidential information, including "secret" government correspondence between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and two cabinet ministers.

It is noteworthy that Smith is a veteran of the British Royal Air Force, where he served for 12 years.

Smith was detained as a result of a sting operation during which he "made contact" with two MI5 officers posing as Russian citizens "Dmitry" and "Irina".

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An Argentinian couple from Slovenia, a Mexican-Greek photographer who ran a yarn shop in Athens, an Italian influencer, a Russian spy who tried to get a job at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and a whole network of agents in Poland accused of performing various tasks for Russian intelligence – all of these people are working to ensure that Russia can continue to implement its inhumane terrorist policies. The Kremlin's methods are changing, but the number and intensity of attempts to steal classified information, organize a special operation, or destabilize a country is constantly growing.