Russian Spies and the Diaspora: The Compatriots with Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov

EVENT TRANSCRIPT: Russian Spies and the Diaspora: The Compatriots with Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov

DATE: 3pm, 2 March 2021

VENUE: Online

SPEAKERS: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan, Jade McGlynn

EVENT MODERATOR: Dr Jade McGlynn

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  00:01

Okay, let us begin. So thank you to our audience for joining us today. My name is Jade McGlynn. I’m the director of research here at Henry Jackson Society. Where I also head up the Russia and Eurasian Studies Center. And I’m just going to start with some housekeeping. So everybody should be muted. Please type any questions that you have into the zoom q&a box. Then at the end, we have sort of 20-25 minutes for questions. And we’ll group the questions as we work with the questions together. But we’ll ask those selected and to ask their questions individually, to the speakers, who are the wonderful Andre Soldatov and Irina Borogan, experts on the Russian security services and investigative journalists originally from Moscow, they’re the founders and editors of the agentura.ru website, as well as the authors of several books, including “The New Nobility,” “The Red Web,” and “The Compatriots” which we are here today to discuss, and which is an excellent read, expertly taking the reader through the historical context necessary to understand the Russian government’s attitudes or uses of the diaspora today, and especially how to control youths and unfortunately, on occasion on assassinate. So let’s start, perhaps with a nice, simple question. Again, Andre and Irina, what was your aim in writing this book?

 

Andre Soldatov  01:29

First of all, thank you for having us its really a great pleasure for us to have a chance to talk about our book. And as the main objective was somehow natural for us, because of first book is an inability was about I would say, traditional means to control Russian people via security services. So it was about the FSB. And it was called “The New Nobility.” And then after that, we looked at the new dimension, cyber dimension, and it was about people living into content abroad. But it was mostly about this fifth domain, the Russian Internet, and how successful or not really successful the Kremlin was at putting this cyberspace under control. And after that, we thought, what Well, probably now we need to think about the Russian people who live abroad, because they should be of big interest for the Kremlin, and given the long history of relationship between the Kremlin as a political immigration, and that’s prompted us to actually to take a look at this issue and to start researching this book.

 

Irina Borogan  02:42

Thank you for having us here. And I will just add couple forwards. When we started, it’s very difficult to remember how the idea came to your mind to write the book to write particular book on particular issue, because I remember our conversation with an American journalist talk to us and told us, oh guys, you wrote a book about security services, you wrote a book about about technology, but you have to write something about people. And I told Andre, Andre, we have to write something about people. It’s It’s so bad that people seem that we have never been writing about people. So it could be caused our issue is mostly security services investigations. And we also have been covering war conflicts and terrorist attacks in Russia and abroad. And what what people we can what people we can write about, and it seems that we should write about emigrants and poisoning, so and people who was poisoned and emigrants, and that’s how it started. But after that, it’s, it’s getting bigger and bigger. And so on.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  04:02

I mean, I’m happy it did. It’s such a, I think it all fits together wonderfully. It’s like a mosaic of different stories, and then they all link back in together. I suppose to I would like to pick up on one point, though, which is the titles so “The Compatriots” our in Russian, such sneaky and it has quite deliberate overtones in in the Russian I mean, in the English history as a bit as well. Obviously, this language around compatriots was very prominent during the annexation of Crimea and, and during the Ukraine conflict and sort of the need to defend compatriots. Could you explain this a bit more about about why this term why this time is so relevant, and why particularly Vladimir Putin went to use this.

 

Irina Borogan  04:45

This towards emigrants and competitors have different meanings in a Russian language, I mean, the meanings may be the same but connotation is different because emigrants are people who are emigrated and started being a little bit a little bit anonymous to the his former Motherland, or just adjust sister relationship with their former former Motherland completely. And that has some kind of negative connotation in Russian language. Of course it happened and it happened during the Soviet times. But compatriots, they’re people who are very loyal to the Russian state still loyal and who are and who believe, who believe are in Russian state and who still have close cultural and historical connections with Russia. So the compatriots, they are good people.

 

Andre Soldatov  05:54

And the emigrants means was actually synonymous with what’s like greater enemy or even subversive element, something like even a spy, actually.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  06:05

Okay, thanks for that. Yeah, that’s quite an important thing, I think to get to delineate. Thank you. fair to say then, based on the definitions, as well, that, of course, compatriots has these positive overtones, but it’s really talking about a sense of cultural patriotism. If you’re it’s not, it’s not necessarily an ethnic issue. It’s about promoting certain cultural historical ties. And you pick up in your work on the use of space, NGOs, also other forms of culture? And do you see this as an area that I suppose an area to watch? Do you think that we’re likely to see more of this? So you referenced the immortal regiment marches and their growth throughout the the marches, where people hold the portraits? Do you think that there’s likely to be more growth in trying to perhaps even move beyond just the Diaspora and actually use the Diaspora to push a positive image of Russia abroad? Or do you think that’s reached the limit? What are your thoughts on that?

 

Andre Soldatov  07:16

But I think that we need to look at this problem, as something very multi actually had lots of levels. On one level, you can say that, first of all, it’s not about ethnic Russians anymore. It’s about people who have sometimes we have the territory of the former Soviet Union. So it helps to promote, and project powers of the Kremlin, to the counter sorts of former Soviet Union, like Central Asia as a baltics, Ukraine, of course, Belarus. And that’s to keep the Russian influence alive and, and palpable in these regions. The other level is that the country like Russia, which used to have the status of a superpower, and projected an image of a superpower in the Soviet Union, I’m in the Cold War. By say, traditional means, because we had this big army nukes and all that. Now, the Kremlin wanted to, to protect the same power, the same idea, but Russia is still the superpower, but using different means, which are not that expensive. And you can use some radical things like you can say use some cyber attacks, and that will protect your image as someone who is really powerful, I can do some damage, very far from home. But you also can launch some organizations in western countries, and organize some some manifestations, just to make sure that people actually feel your presence there. And that’s exactly what’s going on, and has been going on since 2015, for instance, in the United States. And we’ve been seeing this manifestations yet for five years now. And now it’s not only about New York, it’s about many cities, from Chicago to to Washington, to Los Angeles and San Francisco, when all of a sudden on in May you have 1000s and sometimes hundreds of Russians, with, with flags with Russian slogans marched in the streets. Not big actually. But nevertheless, it’s it’s the meaning of fat, that you have Russians there who are still loyal to the Kremlin, who use the same terminology as was used, for instance, during the occupation of Crimea, and they use the same symbol symbolism is the same, the same things as the same words literally, and that’s I think it’s quite successful. The limits to these activities are actually not exactly known now, because we know that this organizations might be and actually use it as front organizations for Russian intelligence services. One of the most remarkable examples is the school at the Institute of the Russian Diaspora, exposed as the front organizations of the Russian military intelligence by the Washington Post in 2018. And actually, the unit which runs psyops operations, engineers, they actually they use this institute as a cover. But many things we just don’t know. Because, for instance, in 2016, when the Kremlin took a decision to interfere in the elections, they decided to use on the online elements are they used targeted cyber operations, but for some reasons, they decided not to use people who they had on the ground, but doesn’t mean that these people are not fair.

 

Irina Borogan  11:06

Even the fans of Russia, Russian diaspora is huge, it is the third, the third largest in the world. It comes after, after Indian and Mexican and Indian and Chinese diaspora is, is on lift force. So according to Putin’s estimates, there are certain millions of Russian who are living abroad, including the population of the former Soviet Republic, like Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and so on. And among, according to the UN estimates are 10 millions of us people living in Western Europe and in the United States. So it’s a huge fertile-

 

Andre Soldatov  11:45

No, only in Europe.

 

Irina Borogan  11:47

Yes, only in Europe. And so it’s huge fertile ground for, for recruiting for, I don’t know, for spreading cultural information, find some other possibilities to walk with this people.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  12:05

compatriots as a race as a natural resource.

 

Andre Soldatov  12:09

Absolutely, yes, absolutely.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  12:12

Thank you. I’m actually going to move over slightly to security services that we’ve already touched upon them that never popped on the surface in the book and in conversation, but you’ve been working on security services for a long time. So you referenced your first book, and obviously even before then, I just wonder if back in the early 2000s, did did you think that you would end up with Russia, we’d end up where it has in terms of the situation now.

 

Irina Borogan  12:41

It was much better. It was not bad. Not bad. It was bad. But you know, even even from our experience as journalist when we started to write about the Russian security services, like literally 20 years old and already back then the can to communicate, we can talk, we can come to talk with people who have acquired people on the inside the security services, and not only this operator, but also these generals. I remember that I could meet with an active FSB general in a small cafe, and he wanted to and he wanted to explain what’s going on inside inside the FSB is a Russian Russian counterintelligence agency and now a secret also secret police. He was disturbed by a rivalry inside inside the service. And he feels that a lot of sins went wrong including corruption and even are sometimes at some operatives were involved of organized crime and have had close connections with mafia. So he was very disturbed and he decided to meet with me and to explain that all these things and in the antithesis meeting I remember it’s literally like, like it happens yesterday, he he pulled out a sheet of paper and draw a structure of he FSB are very, very detailed. So what happens that’s when I was 20 years old, but now I have much, much more difficult even given the fact that people know our source and we have a lot of connections inside the security services. People are so frightened that they are so intimidated and they don’t feel that they can that exposing information and may and making it some some facts public they can achieve something good for them for for the service for anything. So it’s much much more difficult to get information from them because it’s fear, intimidation and because there’s absolutely new security services that are used.

 

Andre Soldatov  15:06

For people actually get really intimidated by the FSB, but but people inside FSB were also intimidated by Putin, they actually understood that now they, they serve at the mercy of Vladimir Putin. And, and actually, sometimes we overlook this fact, because we have this image of the FSB, as all powerful organization, but Putin made it very clear, in 2015, when he started his selective repressions, that he doesn’t want any independent actions from the FSB. And he stripped them from foreign passports from the right to have properties abroad, and have the right to travel abroad. He also actually punished some people inside, and he got several FSB officers in jail, we got an FSB general in jail, and it was made very public to teach a lesson that please now you, you should understand that all of this old independence, you enjoyed it in the 90s and in the 2000s, it’s all finished now. It’s all gone. And since then, I would say for the last five years, we’ve been seeing an increased activity of the FSB, other oppressive towards the president, but it’s actually a tool, it’s nothing more.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  16:36

So it doesn’t have that sort of any independence, that independence outside of-

 

Andre Soldatov  16:41

No, that’s all that’s all gone.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  16:44

Given what you’ve just described, about the fear intimidation, see, not only caused by the FSB, but felt inside the FSB, why are the FSB and other security agencies popular is perhaps a loaded term, but the number of Russians who would consider a career at the FSB, for example, as a worthwhile pursuit that’s increased to 69%. And 76% of that figure, is, constitutes young people under the age of 30. And the number of people who view work at the FSB in a negative light declined from 34% to 11%. During the same period, you maybe unpack that for Western audiences little bit why that’s the case.

 

Andre Soldatov  17:26

But there are different schools, schools of thought to explain that. Levgudkov, actually is  behind this with research, explained that actually, people respect something they do not know, of it did not understand. And they had this image of a mysterious and all powerful organization. And they just suspected, because we have the legacy of the thinking that national security, meaning, not the security of ordinary citizens, but the security of the nation, the security of the state, is such an important thing that the agency, which is in charge of it should be respected. And the status of these agencies should be really high. And if you look, for instance, at the criminal court of the Russian Federation, and you look how several multiple different crimes are punishable by law, you can see that if you kill somebody, you get seven years in jail. But if you are accused of state treason, you might get 20 years in jail. So the crimes against the state punished more severely than the crimes against people. And we have a big consensus in society. That that’s exactly right. The other problem, but actually people got really frightened by the FSB, and just barely mentioned that many of these polls are done by by phone call. And you just need to imagine, well, you have an ordinary Russian citizen sitting somewhere in in a small regional town getting a call asking what well you want about this? What do you think about the FSB? Do you respect?

 

Irina Borogan  19:14

And let me explain what the job inside the FSB means, practically, of course. Now, Russia is not economically very well. Of course more in Moscow, you can make a lot of money and be happy, but outside Moscow, outside big cities, especially in the Russian provinces, especially in Russian regions, you can you cant make money at all it’s very difficult. And making money making business you fought you’re an enormous risk of being punished even by the FSB too, and as a security services and the job if you get if you get a job in the FSB, it means you will be well paid. You will get your your hospitals medical insurance for free, you will get your apartments for free. And up, you get a right to have your pension at the age of 40-45. And this pension will be a four or 4-5 times bigger than average pension in Russia. So that’s the reason and that’s not so, so difficult job. I mean that only only maybe 2 or 5% of of people who work who work in the inside, in the FSB, they puts out they are alive at risk. And I would say well, I said maybe I don’t want to be too bad, frankly speaking. It’s, it’s it’s like around 1%. And other people, they’re just, they’re just sitting at this very comfortable offices, there are not a lot of job. It’s mostly bureaucracy, and following the rules. So it’s, it’s as a job, and it’s very well paid. There’s a reason also in the 90s. Back in the 90s, it was absolutely different because people who were doing business ever paid well. And they had a lot of opportunities to make a lot of money. But all the bureaucracy was paid, including Security Services was not paid very well, they were really poor people. So people didn’t did not want to go to the security services, but now it’s absolutely different.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  21:31

So there’s that prestige, but also the financial aspect.

 

Irina Borogan  21:35

Yeah, of course, all these factors.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  21:40

I spent some time at the university there, and actually a quite a lot of the younger students were explaining to me that the the the, like, sort of different young men, and it was often the young men who were going into what they described as the police. But of course, they probably wouldn’t explain to them going into the FSB. They explained to me the difference in salaries and how much higher it was than the than the local average as it were, and it was, you know, markedly higher than the average salary which is pretty low. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear that, but it was interesting review, thank you. Um, another thing that can puzzle people around, that you touch upon in a really wonderful way, is the role of the church and you write about how Putin brought the sort of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia back to the Russian Orthodox Church abroad in the process for which that happened. And it was a very, very sensitive move. He was very sensitive and sort of cautious and tactical in his approach. But one of the things that, that you also write about that’s pretty, I think is pretty amusing for a lot of people is the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church now, and perhaps even to a certain extent then  under security services. And I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit? Where that’s come from?

 

Andre Soldatov  23:03

Yeah, I think it’s, it’s actually it’s a fascinating topic, because it’s not only about the church, and it was never only about the church in fact, it was all this about something bigger. For instance, why was Putin became really interested at subordination of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, there’s a Moscow paternity, not because he was such a religious person as he claims to be, but also because he, he knew, as we all knew, that, back in the Soviet Union, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have this image of so we have this Russia what we live in, but we also have an image of the other Russia, of people who fled after the revolution and, and several generations of Russians living abroad be not corrupted by communism, and there was a very idealistic notion of his other Russia, which is, which is full of Russian nobility, aristocracy, and intellectuals. And of course, they are much more, if you can’t use this word spiritual minded, because they have is charge and discharge is not corrupted by a communist, or the KGB. And while the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a big idea that maybe these people and the descendants would come back to the country and help to fix it. And actually, Yetsin believed in his idea and he invited the first as a descendant of the first wave of emigration back to Russia, because he believed that if you can somehow bring unite with Russians and into one that could help to fix the problem with background hazards to society which was absolutely I would say void of any ideas and, and just horrible in terms of, of of failures, if you wish. And so what Putin actually didn’t want to see, he didn’t want to see any other Russia, he didn’t want to have any alternative to what he had in the country, he wanted to subordinate was a crucial element. And I think that was really interesting how he did that, because he started with the church. But it was not only about the church, it was about the biggest names in the first wave of emigration. And, for instance, he actually he launched a special kind of special operation to have the remains of the biggest name since the Russian emigrations, white army generals been transferred to Russia. Because after that, he sort of he co-opted at the memory of his people, he became a leader not only of say, checkers, but also of some ways of the people who formed checkers. So he became something absolutely indisputable, and was very smart of him. But then he got his his objective achieved. Lots of people, including people in the intelligence agencies, they understood that the church actually provides an excellent cover for all kinds of operations. And only one we were talking about the immortal regiment manifestations. It’s an interesting thing that in New York, for instance, you can see these manifestations organized by the youth department of the church there. And we use the facilities of the church to have some of these rallies in, in they they have a facility in the woods, in upstate, and they use it to host people with who actually use the uniform since the Second World War, and they must wear and racing, some Soviet patriotic songs and all that. So you have to, you have to church providing the cover. You have the same thing in in Paris, for instance, the administration of the President, and the church decided several years ago to build an enormous facility very close to the, to the headquarters of the French Foreign Ministry. It’s called the Russian spiritual center. And actually, it’s about it’s about Exhibition Center, but out of the church. And the interesting fact that the Russian Embassy requested for all people who actually work at this facility to have a diplomatic status. And of course, we understand why. And we know that the French became really, really nervous about this facility, because we understood all of a sudden that we have this facility, which is protected by this immunity, to some extent, at least in close proximity to a foreign ministry, and it’s fine, but not really safe. And they started talking about some electronic surveillance probably. And all of a sudden, you haven’t in the center of this facility you have is a traditional Russian church very, very, very visible before his pupils and all that. So yeah, this cooperation, I would say, between the state and the churches is very, I would say, it’s a very interesting phenomenon. And the church describes it, I put it in a very interesting way. They said it’s a symphony between the state of the church.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  28:46

That is a lovely way of putting it. It’s very generous description. Just a quick reminder, actually, to the audience to please type your questions into the box. And then we’ll ask them towards the end. Sorry for the interruption, Andre, Irina. I’m looking at this idea of the other of the other Russia and this sort of fascination. If we could go back a little bit in history, I suppose one of the things that surprised me reading the book was when I think of emigres, I think of Paris. And, you know, the literature and you know, all of the writers, I wouldn’t I don’t necessarily, I didn’t, I wouldn’t necessarily straightaway think of the USA, but that’s really where the political activity happens. Why do you think that is? Could you talk a bit about the geography of the Emigre as it were,

 

Irina Borogan  29:39

This is absolutely my feeling when I started working on this issues, Russian emigrations we know about, as well, we have a lot a lot of parents immigration, Chinese in Shanghai, Shanghai and Parisian emigration, and also amongst Berlin, crowds of immigrants, but we didn’t learn a lot about about American migration by exam. But back to the beginning of the 20th century. But we found out that this is a huge crowds that went there, they’re mostly Jewish people, but people of Jewish origin who are the most among all of them emigrate and because of crazy anti semitism of type of service authorities and personal and bizarre personally, and this people they created our community, the most of active people in the Communist Party of the United States was have Russian origin since they were Jewish. So it’s, um, they did a lot. So it was fascinating, fascinatingm even for us,

 

Andre Soldatov  30:48

And actually, Trotsky spent some time in the United States and right before the revolution, and actually well from other people from, from the Central Committee of the, of the Communist Party of, of the Bolshevik Communist Party has spent some time in in New York. And it was a really important thing for, for Leon. But even after that, I mean, because even the people who are expelled from the Soviet Union, so enemies of Bolsheviks. They, for some reasons, they, for different action reasons, they ended up in New York, that started even before the Second World War, for instance, Trotskies have decided to set a shop in New York, because we understood that actually, the second world war already started and we needed to relocate somewhere and they choose, chose New York. And then the war started and a lot of organizations of, of the first wave of emigration, also emigrated, New York, once the war ended, lots of Russians, who, for instance, happen to be in Yugoslavia, and collaborated with local authorities and sometimes very collaborative with the Germans are they fled out of fear of the Red Army and fled to Germany, and many of them ended up in the American zone of occupation. And for them, it was very natural to move after that to New York again, and it’s quite interesting that in the end of the day, by 1945-1946, almost most, I would say most of the most important political emigrate organizations were based in New York from the church, though social democratic movements to have well imperialist and national labor union, all these people, they ended up in New York.

 

Irina Borogan  32:52

And that’s interesting. That’s the third wave of emigration from the Soviet Union with mostly consist of Jewish emigration to the United States. They are absolutely absolutely different from that people in the beginning of the 20th century, they were all, the first wave, Jews who emigrated before the Russian Revolution, all communist, they were even a political, political they were, of course, there were a lot of people who are uneducated, not interested in doing something but all the kind of people they were all communist and say, even as they even start a huge war between Lebanese and Stalinist Stalinist and there were huge division inside the Communist Party and  and among all the left movement back present, and of course, people who came in the 70s and the 60s, they were all anti communist. But the wave of Russian Empire wide emigration was absolutely different. They were pro Czarist, pro Imperial not liberal at all. And so absolutely different people.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  34:06

It’s mad if you think about some of the different historical contact contexts in which these these different waves of immigration came is just fascinating. I just as an aside picking up on obviously, you’re talking about World War Two. And one of the things I found so interesting that you picked up on was the amount of intelligence sources that were going to targeting Trotsky, when World War Two was already underway, I obviously the Nazis hadn’t invaded the Soviet Union, but still, they might have needed intelligence sources at home that they diverted or even in sort of August 1940. When you see all this money and the resources going towards Trotsky, even though I sort of knew about it, I hadn’t put it together before in a way that was very interesting. None of the political activities though, that the State Department or various people just tried to put together had much of an effect. I think it’s fair to say among lot of different emigres. And I suppose if I can bring this back to the present day, we’ve just seen Alexei Navalny obviously returned home, and he’s currently in prison. And one of the lines that he says, and we’ve heard all the sort of prominent opposition figures is “a Russian politician must be in Russia.” Why is this? Why Why is this so important? Why Why is it seen as that it’s not possible? And to sort of be that politician from from over the sea over the water?

 

Andre Soldatov  35:39

I think it’s the problem is that Navalny reads the same book, as we all do. I mean, the books about the Russian emigration. And, of course, it’s very sad story. Because, to be honest, if you look at the history of Russian political immigration, it might be seen as kind of a case study of what could be done and could not be done from abroad with a country like Russia, because political immigration groups, they try to literally everything. They started with terror campaign, so they attack people, and they sent agents back to Russia, and they organize it on terror campaign against Bolshevik officials in the county, when Bolsheviks went to the west as a diplomat, so they attacked them in the West, when the Red Army became became involved in a military conflict out of Russia, like in Spain, some some emigrate organizations, sent the soldiers to help Franco once the war started again, of course, we know this history of at some of the immigrant organizations, they decided to help Hitler because they believed that was a way to get rid of, of communists. And after the war, the whole history of the Cold War is about political political emigrants engaged in some kind of activity, from espionage to propaganda and all that. The problem is that almost actually, almost all of these efforts were absolutely disasters, or they achieved absolutely nothing. And what was also bad that they had constantly aggravated themselves. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible mess. Social Democrats hated Czarist, Ukrainians hated Russian imperialist, because Russian imperialists believe that we can reinstate the Russian Empire in its borders, and, and so on and so forth. Actually, we, at some moment, we tried to find at least one thing where the Russian emigration had some successes, and we found only one, the books. So when the Russians smuggle the books to the west, more, or when they took the books with them, and they fled to the west, some of these books actually worked and worked pretty well at affecting public opinion in the West. And we have Alexander Solzhenitsyn. These books were enormous successes, but when the same people tried to be active politically, was always a disaster. And Solzhenitsyn was a disaster for for trying to, to unite Russian political immigration. And I think these legacy affected Navalny when he said, “Look, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any sense to stay out of the country.” And I think it’s not exactly true, because back then the crucial element was that the borders between Russia and the rest of the of the world where all this closed , they were sealed, it was absolutely almost impossible to leave the country and to get back. And of course, it was impossible to get back. And now we have the internet, which is a really important thing. We have some of the most important media in Russia, well, based out of the borders for instance, and we also have opposition politicians who live, for instance, in Washington, traveling to Russia all the time, like Vladimir Kara-Muza, who is a lobbying and has been lobbying for anti Kremlin sanctions sanctions for many years, he still is capable of getting back to Russia and to do something in the country. So I think now it’s not that black and white. So we have this new factor that the borders still remain porous and open. Well, not in the time of covid. And we’re hoping after the crisis. So I think that Navalny just sort of overlooked this new factor.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  40:09

Okay, thank you. That’s really fair answer. And we need to move to questions. Now. Could I ask you very, very quickly just to summarize for because this comes up in your book, and I think it’s important, just what sort of impact impact the Skripal poisonings had on, on today’s emigres around the world.

 

Irina Borogan  40:30

The impact of Skripal poisoning on today’s immigrants and all, all people in Russia is huge. It caused enormous fear. And the effort was intimidating. Because when we research for the book, or literally everybody mad, including an oligarch who lives who  abroad, including a priest from Russian, Russian church abroad, who is now very well, on the verge of connections with Russian authorities, including oligarchys who live in Russia, they all started asking us about about the Skripal poison, and what could be behind these. And what does it mean, what does it mean, and that was clear, the questions and reactions was very different, very different. But the, the one common thing was fear. When talking about it, it was it was absolutely absolutely clear that they were intimidated, and they felt uncomfortable about about such things can happen., could happen, and that such a thing could happen to with with the approval of the Russian authorities and possibly with Russian president.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  41:53

Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you. I mean, it does, as you as you just said, and also it comes through in the book, quite the impact. I should go to questions now because I’m, I’m taking up far too much time for myself. I’m rather greedy. Um, so for the first question. I think maybe there’s a couple of questions. Could we hand over to Craig Oliphant, please.

 

Craig Oliphant  42:27

Lovely. Yes. Well, thanks very much, Craig Oliphant  from the Foreign Policy Center. Thank you both Irina, Andre, for sharing those overview comments with us. I wondered if I could ask you to say something really about the role of the Russian military. Not so much from the point of view of tanks, kit, missiles, but rather role of the Russian military as perceived in society. And also, its role not least, as drawn upon in education in Russia. Be very interested to hear from you.

 

Andre Soldatov  43:08

It’s a it’s a fascinating question, actually. Because sometimes we overlook this issue, we tend to think and talk about law enforcement and first of all the Russian security services, because we have this notion of the new nobility that these people proclaimed themselves  for Putin. But actually what we became seeing, I would say for Yeah, it started right after the annexation of Crimea, I would say, probably in 2014, or just before that they see that the military is getting more and more ambitious, and much more important in the Russian society. And now they have to say about the Russian history, which was always about ideology, because Russian history is all about ideology. How do you perceive your military history as the Second World War and all that? Also, the grammar of the Russian military now builds a biggest church, which is, which is meant to be a symbol of the increasing influence of the Russian military, for some reasons its painted green. Maybe it’s a camouflage challenge, but it’s it sends this mixed message. And also, of course, they are now interfering in, in schools, and they launched this big thing called youth army. And they actually now they’re taking it very, very seriously. The idea that kids should be actually brainwashed in our schools about the military history. We also build an enormous park, Military Park with all these trophies on kinds of things. In Moscow, I call it the backyard. And it’s actually for 1000s and 1000s of people that’s quite popular. I will say they also launched maybe the most successful propaganda campaign recently, when they organized the trip of a train with the trophies they got in Syria, which actually cross the whole country, from Kaliningrad, to Siberia, to Vladivostok, and it was an enormous success. Just imagine you have some regional town with nothing to do nothing to see. And all of a sudden, you have a train coming right from Moscow, with all these tanks and some exciting things. It was really, really big. And the problem is that we do not know the extent of these ambitions, because the military now history never played a really big role. To be honest, it’s nothing comparable with Latin America or Spain. The last time the military actually played some political role, I mean, independent political role was when they had this embrace the role that in 1825, after that, it was always under control of the party or was a checkist. And now all of a sudden, we have the military plays such a crucial role. Oh, I forgot, of course, about foreign policy. We have foreign ministry, and you can say well of Russia is important, but actually, it’s in some crucial regions like Libya, Syria, Ukraine, the military have a decisive say about what is going on actually, and not the foreign ministry. So I think it’s it’s very worth watching.

 

Irina Borogan  46:45

The militarization of Russian society is so huge now that I have a Vita, this is a Russian Bank, I have a Vitabank app on my phone. And that always be in like blue and what are blue and white because blue and white, as I say are colors of Vitabank. And on the first of March, I noticed that it is became painted in hockey colors. So can you imagine that this is the largest bank, and one of the largest banks of the Russian Federation is this people who are owning these banks. They are bonkers. They’re known to us from the 1990s that oligarchs and they painted and they changed their colors into hockey. That’s ridiculous. And that’s sad.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  47:41

I thought you are going to the orange and black actually, after the George ribbon. I’m not sure if that would be better or worse, but maybe not in March. Maybe that’s amazing. Thank you have the answer questions. The next question we’re going to take is from Marina Delargy. Please.

 

Marina Delargy  48:06

Thank you very much Henry Jackson society for this event. Thank you, Irina. Thank you Andre. And I have a question regarding both of your books, “The Compatriots” and “The Red Web.” Is it possible for the Russian government to control the internet and obliterate all positional models of expression inside Russia and abroad? And can the Russian government exert control outside of Russia through the intelligence agency and operations by the Russian speaking society?

 

Andre Soldatov  48:51

But we are quite optimistic here. While the internet is a it’s an interesting technology, it’s actually it’s designed in a way that you can disrupt something quite easily. Even if you are you have a modest means and tools you can use some small teams to to cause an enormous malimpact, as we have seen in many countries. But this technology is really getting bad if you want to contain something and control something, because there is always some way. And the interesting thing about internet that you always have some new technology come in, and some new platform come in. So you might be finding a way how to deal with that platform on this platform. But all of a sudden you have a new generation of young Russians and new protests. And all of a sudden, instead of something old and well known, they don’t do something new, like Tik Tk and they start posting all these political videos and you if you are in the government, you need to catch up constantly, and it’s, it’s a very difficult thing to do. And to be honest, I would say that the Russian government has been trying to put the Russian internet under control since 2012. So now it’s about eight years. And they had some successes. But to be honest, on the whole, now, it’s not a success story. Global platforms are still available. They filter and problem program is in place, but not not really successful. If you want to get information about what’s going on, say, in Ukraine, and above the Russian Ministry presence where you can get it, if you want to watch Navalny’s videos, they are absolutely available. If you want to read something, again, it’s all available. They are quite good at intimidating people. We have lots of people sent to jail for posting something critical online. But again, access to information is still available. Yeah.

 

Irina Borogan  50:58

Even even given the fact that the Russian authorities launched a special agency part of the special agency rules of conducts for filtering and censorship. And from therefore, for eight years, they have been working ever since they can, and there are a lot of people who are in charge of this job. But they are absolutely they absolutely fail because you can find anything on on internet, anything.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  51:24

Some good news. Okay. The next question I have to read out. So I think it’s an interesting question. So it’s not from me, but I’m just reading out. So the question is, apart from embassy and diplomatic cover, what are in your view, the main networks and channels of Russia’s intelligence operations in Ukraine has the emphasis of these operations shifted from human sort of intelligence to more cyber and mass media? And I suppose I’m adding this bit but if it is mass media, probably the Medvedchuk sanctions weren’t very welcome.

 

Andre Soldatov  52:02

We are not experts on Ukraine. So it’s really good to say something in detail and provide some details. But we see that the actual traditional covers are extremely popular, still very popular with Russian intelligence. We’ve thought for instance, when we started researching this book, that something like cultural centers are such an outdated thing that well probably we could forget about it. It’s like something from the 50s or 60s. Why on earth doo you need the Cultural Center and the other in the middle of London or Washington? What do you use it as a cover? But well, it turns out that that’s not true, actually, these things are still popular. And as we know, facts, too. I think this story was published in The Washington Post two years ago by the head of the Cultural Center in Washington, and he was exposed by the FBI because he, he actually he he kept tabs on American students here. His  center was sending to Russia for some for some fellowships, because he wanted to have a database on people who might be recruited in the future. And he was exposed and and sent back to, to Moscow. So they use these traditional covers very extensively in all of the world

 

Irina Borogan  53:37

And remember that Ukraine is a very special country for Russian intelligence, because the calculation between the security Russian security services and the Ukrainian security shows us was very close. And so there’s still a lot of people who are inside the agreement, security services, quasi imprecise Russian, Russia and Russian security services. And in terms of cultural connections, there are also a lot of possibilities to recruit people and the world as one language very similar culture. So, there are a lot of possibilities, much more possibilities for gathering information and recruiting people inside in Ukraine’s and other countries for Russian intelligence.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  54:26

Thank you. Thank you for that. And now I think we’ve got time for one last question from Judas klieman, please.

 

Judith Kleeman  54:43

Thank you very much for having me, to the Henry Jackson Society and both of you. My question is do you think with the imprisonment of Aleksei Navalny that Putin has reverted his policies back to the 1980s

 

Andre Soldatov  55:03

I think it’s Civil War since 1970s. Because actually, well in the 80s. Well, we had Gorbachev, and today actually they celebrate his 90th birthday. And well, and and he started historic and all by then, and and I think that, under his rule, it was absolutely unthinkable to imagine let’s his, even his KGB would poison somebody. But in the 70s, we had some some examples. That, actually is a KGB, well, provided some poison to, to friendly security services like Bulgaria and Serbia for famous umbrella poisoning here in London, or doing something on their own as it happened with the Russian defector in Vienna. And it’s actually it’s quite striking. It was very striking for us, because when we, when I was really young journalist and I, as a way to, to, to start writing about these issues was, of course to talk with police officers of Russian intelligence and counterintelligence. And these people, very polite people, very intelligent people, they always insisted that all these so called operations, meaning, killings and assassinations were stopped after the, after the death of Stalin. And they insisted on that every day, like, No, no, no, it’s all stopped in the 1950s, as the last operation we had was against once against the Ukrainian independence movement, Stefan Bandera and what was the last operation after that it all stopped. And when you understand it actually was not true. And you see the same people are the same technologists, the same methods, the same department somehow, still, they’re working on these issues. And that was, to be honest, the biggest lesson we got when we researched this book, the idea of continuity that you have these traditions very much alive. But actually, paradoxically, if you look at the KGB as a big security service, which was split into several agencies after 1991, and you think that well the FSB is be probably the worst, because it’s so visible. But FSB was still, to some extent form, I mean, they needed to be reformed because they they faced an new problem and new challenge of, of terrorism in the country, so we needed to do something. And because they were much more visible, there were many scandals inside again, there was a big demand for reform inside of FSB, it was a failure, but at least there was some attempt to to reform the FSB. The foreign intelligence, the SVR was never ever reformed at all. Nobody tried to reform it. They always they pretend to be the most liberal part of the KGB. And that helped them from any reform, they still exactly the same what they have been on the bow in Soviet Union, and they cherish their traditions, and they still praise the heroes. And one of the main characters of our book is Vasily Zarubin who was chief of the intelligence station in New York, and he helped to steal the American atomic bomb. And his portrait is still displayed in the offices of the SVR these days. So you have these things. And this continue each year and well, so it’s, it’s it was really striking for us.

 

Dr Jade McGlynn  59:06

Thank you, I think you’re striking yourself for us, especially later on when you have one of Zarubins, I think he’s his great grandson turns off in his marriage to the journalist, and then has these links and of course, ends up unfortunately in prison. And of course, there’s a different story on there, but I don’t want to ruin the book, which everybody should go and read. But thank you so much for joining us and for answering, you know, really quite a range of questions. Some quite specifically about the books on which got slightly distracting. So much to pursue on a on a slight detour. But I know I’ve learnt so much. I hope that our audience is the same I’m sure that they do. But now unfortunately, it’s time to end. I would like to apologize that if you didn’t get a chance to ask their questions and thank you to those who did ask Questions. And finally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Andre and Irina for joining us today.

 

HJS



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