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US and British intelligence chiefs are recruiting disaffected members of Russia’s high command humiliated by the Kremlin’s failure to win the war in Ukraine.
Senior intelligence officials within the CIA and MI6 believe that a growing number of senior officers within the Russian military now view the war as a major miscalculation by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to intelligence sources.
Morale amongst the Russian military elite is also believed to be low after several senior officers have died in mysterious circumstances – such as falling out of windows – while others have been arrested and charged with corruption since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022.
The purge of some senior military personnel is also another reason why some officers may consider working for the west, sources said.
Colonel Philip Ingram, a former military intelligence officer, said the CIA and MI6 would look at any opportunity to recruit agents in Russia.
He said: “The US and British intelligence services will exploit the false narratives Putin pushes out across the country to identify people who could pass relevant information for intelligence purposes.
“Many Russian officers will feel completely humiliated by the Army’s failure to bring the war to a quick end. Remember the war was meant to last just a few days, three months at the most. But two years and 500,000 casualties later and with Russia no nearer to victory will mean that the Russian high command is ripe for recruitment.”
The heads of both the CIA and MI6 have also publicly urged Russians concerned with the impact the war is having on their country to consider becoming western agents.
Last year, Sir Richard Moore, the head of MI6 invited discontented Russians to share their secrets with British intelligence services.
In a speech, he said: “I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 months and join hands with us.
“Our door is always open. We will handle their offers of help with the discretion and professionalism for which my service is famed. Their secrets will always be safe with us.”
CIA Director Bill Burns has said that the disaffection among some Russians over the war in Ukraine was creating a rare opportunity to recruit spies.
He said: “Disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us. We’re very much open for business.”
He made his comments after the CIA released a Russian-language video to try to persuade Russian intelligence employees to switch sides and work as double agents for Washington.
The video, released on the CIA’s official channel on X, tries to appeal to what it suggests are patriotic Russians working in the intelligence community who may feel betrayed by what it called corruption in elite circles and the poor way the Russian armed forces are equipped and supplied.
The video continues: “Those around you may not want to hear the truth. But we do. You are not powerless. Do I have enough courage to confront this betrayal?” the video shows him saying, before he says he has realised the real enemy is inside Russia in the form of a corrupt leadership and elite.
“The top leadership has sold the country out for palaces and yachts at a time when our soldiers are chewing rotten potatoes and firing from prehistoric weapons. Our people are forced to give bribes to simply find work.”
But the Kremlin attempted to pay down the attempt by the CIA to recruit spies from Russia via social media.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Somebody should tell the CIA that VKontakte is much more popular here than the banned X [formerly Twitter] and that VKontakte has a much larger audience.”
