Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Putin Places Spies Under House Arrest

Putin Places Spies Under House Arrest

The Fifth Service of the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence service, has been targeted and the leadership placed under house arrest.
Its head, Colonel-General Sergei Beseda, and his deputy were being held after allegations of misusing operational funds earmarked for subversive activities and for providing poor intelligence ahead of Russia’s now-stuttering invasion. The operation has hit serious obstacles, not least fierce resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces and the unity of the population, including most Russian-speakers, behind President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government.

The Fifth Service was responsible for providing Putin with intelligence on political developments in Ukraine on the eve of the invasion. And it looks like two weeks into the war, it finally dawned on Putin that he was completely misled. The department, fearful of his responses, seems to have told Putin what he wanted to hear.

Beseda and his staff — officially known as the Service of Operative Information and International ties — oversee connections with foreign partners, including the Americans. Within it resides the infamous Department of Operative Information (DOI), which is essentially the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch.

The FSB obtained a right to conduct operations abroad in the late 1990s, when Putin became director of the organization. The new directorate was formed and tasked with spying in particular on Russia’s nearest neighbors. It was at that time that the authors of this article began following the activities of this FSB unit, reporting on its activities for Russian and international media.

When a series of popular uprisings known as the “color revolutions” started to topple the regimes in the post-Soviet republics, the directorate was tasked to promote pro-Kremlin politicians in order to keep those countries within Russia’s sphere of influence.

In 2004, that directorate became a full department, the DOI, a move underlining its importance in the eyes of the Kremlin. Beseda soon became its head, having previously served in the FSB section supervising the Administration of the President, where he had established excellent connections. Officers of DOI were spotted traveling to Belarus, Moldova, and Abkhazia, a breakaway region in Georgia whose separatist insurgency was supported by the Kremlin. There they spied and also tried to influence local politics.

But Ukraine was always one of the key targets for the DOI. In June 2010, the authors received information that a website was being launched to leak sensitive documents from the FSB. The website was hosted on the domain name lubyanskayapravda.com, "The truth on the Lubyanka [the FSB headquarters building].”

Sure enough, the site contained a trove of extremely sensitive documents, such as reports of DOI’s successful active measures operations, addressed directly to Putin. Most of them bore the signature of Col-Gen Beseda.

Among the documents was one that had been forged to undermine the relationship between Ukraine and Turkmenistan; it was a faked report of the Ukrainian security services suggesting Kyiv had funded the Turkmenistan opposition. The DOI had then leaked the report to Ukrainian media, and Russia’s main foreign spy agency, the SVR, swallowed the bait and described it as authentic in a write-up to the Kremlin — proof, as Beseda gloatingly relayed, that his Russian intelligence service had duped another Russian intelligence service.

It was a mishap, but worse was yet to come: in April 2014, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a request to its Russian counterpart to question Beseda. It said the FSB officer had been in Ukraine on February 20-21 of that year, during the Maidan Revolution, when regime scores of unarmed protesters were shot dead. The Ukrainian government believed it was important to speak to him “in the framework of pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings on the crimes committed during mass events in Kyiv in [that] period.”

The FSB confirmed that Sergei Beseda was indeed in Kyiv on those days. But it claimed he was there to determine ensure the Russian embassy was properly protected, a version that very few Ukrainians accepted. Since 2014, Beseda has been on US and European Union sanctions lists. The FSB was “involved in the funding and supporting of separatist activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine,” the US Treasury Department stated.

The Fifth Service emerged unscathed despite the scandal – Beseda’s people remained in charge of supplying intelligence on Ukraine, developing sources on the ground, and conducting subversive operations.

It seems that protective umbrella has now been withdrawn.

Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are nonresident senior fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) They are Russian investigative journalists, and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Unelected PM of the UK holds an emergency meeting because a candidate got voted in… which he says is a threat to democracy…
Farmers break through police barriers in Brussels.
Ukraine Arrests Father-Son Duo In Lockbit Cybercrime Bust
US Offers $15 Million For Info On Leaders Of Cybercrime Group Lockbit
Apple warns against drying iPhones with rice
Alexei Navalny: UK sanctions Russian prison chiefs after activist's death
German economy is in 'troubled waters' - ministry
In a recent High Court hearing, the U.S. argued that Julian Assange endangered lives by releasing classified information.
Tucker Carlson says Boris Johnson wants "a million dollars, in Bitcoin or cash, from Tucker Carlson to talk about Ukraine.
Russia is rebuilding capacity to destabilize European countries, new UK report warns
EU Commission wants anti-drone defenses at Brussels HQ
Von der Leyen’s 2nd-term pitch: More military might, less climate talk
EU Investigates TikTok for Child Safety Concerns
EU Launches Probe Into TikTok Over Child Protection Under Digital Content Law
EU and UK Announce Joint Effort on Migration
Ministers Confirm Proposal to Prohibit Mobile Phone Usage in English Schools
Avdiivka - Symbol Of Ukrainian Resistance Now In Control Of Russian Troops
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has died at the Arctic prison colony
Tucker Carlson grocery shopping in Russia. This is so interesting.
France and Germany Struggle to Align on European Defense Strategy
‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
Greece Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage and Adoption Rights
Russia "Very Close" To Creating Cancer Vaccines, Says Vladimir Putin
Hungarian Foreign Minister: Europeans will lose Europe, the Union's policy must change drastically
Microsoft says it caught hackers from China, Russia and Iran using its AI tools
US Rejects Putin's Ceasefire Offer in Ukraine
The Dangers of Wildfire Smoke and Self-Protection Strategies
A Londoner has been arrested for expressing his Christian beliefs.
Chinese Women Favor AI Boyfriends Over Humans
Greece must address role in migrant vessel disaster that killed 600: Amnesty
Google pledges 25 million euros to boost AI skills in Europe
Hungarian President Katalin Novák Steps Down Amid Pardon Controversy
Activist crashes Hillary Clinton's speech, calls her a 'war criminal.'
In El Salvador, the 'Trump of Latin America' stuns the world with a speech slamming woke policing after winning a landslide election
Trudeau reacts to Putin's mention of Canadian Parliament applauding a former Ukrainian Nazi in his interview with Tucker Carlson.
The Spanish police blocked the farmers protest. So the farmers went out and moved the police car out of the way.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy fires top Ukraine army commander
Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin raises EU concerns
Finnish Airline, Finnair, is voluntarily weighing passengers to better estimate flight cargo weight
Russia's Economy Expands by 3.6% Due to Increased Military Spending
Ukraine MPs Vote To Permit Use Of Dead Soldiers' Sperm
German Princess Becomes First Aristocrat To Pose Naked On Playboy Cover
UK’s King Charles III diagnosed with cancer
EU's Ursula von der Leyen Confronts Farmer Protests Amid Land Policy Debates
Distinguishing Between Harmful AI Media and Positive AI-Generated Content: A Crucial Challenge for the EU
Tucker Carlson explains why he interviewed Putin
Dutch farmers are still protesting in the Netherlands against the government, following the World Economic Forum's call for 'owning nothing.'
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stands up for European farmers and says, 'Brussels is suffocating European farmers.
×