The CIA plans to recruit Russians who oppose the special operation in Ukraine, according to the Wall Street Journal’s report, citing CIA Deputy Director David Marlowe.
“We are looking all over the world for Russians who, like us, are disgusted by this (special ops – ed.). We are open to cooperation,” he said.
Marlowe made the announcement at the think tank at George Mason University. This is his first performance in almost a year and a half of service in this position. According to the WSJ, it happened last week, and along with Marlow was Linda Weisgold, CIA deputy director of analysis. His unit is tasked with preparing ready-made intelligence reports and keeping US President Joe Biden and other senior officials informed.
Appointed to the post in June 2021, Marlowe reiterates recent claims by “former senior CIA officers that many Russians” discontent with a special operation in Ukraine “created fertile ground for recruiting agents among disgruntled officers, oligarchs.” weakened by sanctions and by businessmen and others fleeing the country,” he writes.
The WSJ also recalled the expulsion of Russian diplomats from European countries. MI6 chief Richard Moore had previously said that declaring “more than 400 Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover” as persona non grata “has undermined the Kremlin’s intelligence operations”.
The Russian Federation Council noted that the CIA’s statements about its plans to recruit Russian citizens should not surprise anyone.
“The CIA has already told about the work they have done throughout their lives. That’s the only reason the CIA exists – to fight, discredit and undermine Russia. Maybe they got lost [дух авантюризма]? Crimean Senator Sergey Tsekov told NEWS.ru that probably Marlow already regrets what he said, because there are idiots everywhere, so he spoke the truth as a stupid person, but it’s understandable,” said Crimean Senator Sergey Tsekov.
According to Tsekov, a “normal person” will tell law enforcement everything if they try to hire him.
diplomat recruitment
Moscow had previously accused the West of trying to recruit diplomats. At the end of May this year, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that push notifications appeared on the work computers of Russian diplomats abroad with a call to “make the right decision” in connection with Russian special operations. Operation in Ukraine There was also a “contact phone number”.
“There is still creativity when announcements are made in embassies or at stops on the route of our diplomats that “Attention Russian diplomat”. And then the same information,” he added.
In June, the head of the Federation Council’s international relations committee, Grigory Karasin, said such “frontal conscription” of Russian diplomats in the US and EU countries was “a clumsy business” that did not exist even during the worst years of the Cold War. .
“It also turned out that at our embassy in Washington, representatives of the representative office were handing out cards to FBI contacts in the hopes of cooperating and betraying the Motherland,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
“Even in the worst years of the Cold War there was no such clumsy job. Pity guys! added.
Karasin noted that such activities are manifested in all Russian embassies in the European Union.
Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, was also offered to speak against the Russian leadership. He allegedly received a letter urging him to seek asylum in the United States and “apply to the office of First Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.”
Antonov also confirmed that some people at the Russian embassy handed out business cards with their phone numbers and offered to “talk to the FBI”. But the Russian ambassador did not undertake to say whether they were provocateurs or real employees of the American special services.