Edward Lucas - Deception

Russia also enjoys a direct presence in foreign media. The Russian taxpayer in 2010 regularly subsidised struggling foreign newspapers including the Daily Telegraph and the Washington Post , which printed special advertising ‘supplements’ called ‘Russia Now’, 27highly flavoured to suit the official line and produced by Rossiyskaya Gazeta , a government newspaper with a disgraceful record of historical falsification and propaganda peddling. 28The print editions try to make it clear that the inserts are not the work of their own journalists. But the paid-for material nestles on the newspapers’ websites, with a layout very similar to that of the real journalism. A disclaimer in tiny print states: ‘Russia Now is Paid Supplement [sic] to the Washington Post.’ On the Telegraph website a more prominent one reads: ‘This online supplement is produced and published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia), which takes sole responsibility for the content.’ But it does not specifically say that money has changed hands. A casual browser could easily be confused.

Also in Britain, two prominent papers, The Independent and the London Evening Standard , are in the hands of Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a former KGB officer, Aleksandr Lebedev, who worked in the Soviet-era rezidentura in London and is unfondly remembered by dissident émigrés of that era (he also became famous in September 2011 for his unrepentant use of violence against a fellow-discussant on a television programme). 29The papers have covered some otherwise boring Russian business stories with notable alacrity, and chronicled the social activities of their proprietor (to be fair, hardly unusual in the British media). No consistent signs have yet appeared of interference with the editorial line on Russia itself. (The Independent’s diplomatic editor, Mary Dejevsky, is a well-known British specialist on Russia whose distinctively optimistic line on the country’s prospects and problems long predates the paper’s change in ownership.) None of the other papers mentioned has adopted a pro-Russian stance, though the general shrivelling of budgets for foreign coverage has certainly weakened their ability to follow the intricacies of Russian politics and business.

More worrying than the advertising largesse and changes in ownership is the wider, subtler effect of Russian money on the media. Russian agents are adept at cultivating their media contacts, and in offering access in return for favourable coverage. Those who write hostile stories may find that they are no longer invited to Valdai. For professional Russia-watchers, an invitation to this event, normally held in November, is tantamount to a job ticket. Being barred can be a career-chiller, or killer. A tougher sanction, for journalists who are consistently critical of Russia, is a visa blacklist compiled by the FSB.

Russian influence and subversion crops up across the entire spectrum of public life in EU countries and America. Much of what goes on cannot be discussed openly for fear of libel suits, but occasional scandals give at least an outline picture. One is the role of Russian agents in bribing, blackmailing or bamboozling politicians. Sometimes the results are remarkably unsubtle, such as when they slavishly follow Russian talking points and voting strategies in international bodies such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Readers may be forgiven for never having heard of either outfit: they are well-funded talking shops that pass sententious resolutions of great prolixity and little weight. However, Russia finds them useful forums for its agenda, for example, highlighting issues that divide or embarrass its European critics. 30More important than the bodies’ activities, however, is their membership: they consist of lawmakers who also have important jobs back home.

Those who observe the meetings of these bodies notice how often attractive young Russian and East European women accompany some of the middle-aged male MPs who make up the bulk of their membership. In most cases these women have doubtless been hired solely for their research skills. But the suspicion remains that in at least some cases someone has assigned them to these elected officials, with the aim of influencing their decision-making or obtaining sensitive information. This does not necessarily involve treason. Some politicians are stupid and naive enough to hire and hobnob with questionable assistants without considering that anything might be amiss.

In 2010, for example, Britain’s Security Service was alarmed to note that Katya Zatuliveter, a Russian citizen working in Parliament, had met a Russian intelligence officer based at the embassy in London. The spycatchers were convinced that they had spotted an active and dangerous spy. The use of attractive young women – lastochky (swallows) – to seduce Western targets was a mainstay of the KGB playbook. Ms Zatuliveter had a lengthy affair with her employer, Mike Hancock MP. He was a classic target: forty years older than her, portly, self-important, married – and also a member of the House of Commons Defence Committee and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. She later bedded a senior NATO official (also married) dealing with Russia and Ukraine. No young British woman could enjoy a comparable career in Russia.

The Home Secretary ordered Ms Zatuliveter’s deportation. She appealed (odd behaviour if she were in fact a spy) – and MI5 suffered an unprecedented public embarrassment. The appeal tribunal included Sir Stephen Lander, the former director of MI5, as one of the three judges. The evidence MI5 presented in open court was unconvincing – and so too, apparently, was what it argued in the secret sessions. The tribunal concluded that it was unlikely Ms Zatuliveter was a spy: far more likely, she was just ‘an immature, calculating, emotional and self-centred young woman’. 31That she had met a Russian intelligence officer in London counted in her favour: were she really a spy, she would shun any such contact and meet her case officer only on her regular trips to Russia. It was astonishing that, even in secret, MI5 was unable to produce conclusive evidence of any wrongdoing. Nor was it clear why the service had risked publicly demanding its quarry’s deportation. A quiet warning would have stopped any espionage in its tracks. And if Ms Zatuliveter was a real spy, why not watch her in action? One explanation may be that MI5’s once-fearsome expertise in Russia has decayed severely since the end of the Cold War.

Whatever its practical failings, MI5 and sister services are right to believe that Russian citizens visiting the West under their own names are a far bigger part of the Kremlin’s espionage effort than old-fashioned ‘illegals’. A plausible example of the new echelon would be a comely young PhD student bearing a passport from an East European country (Commission officials responsible for counter-intelligence sometimes mention Bulgaria in this context). This ‘student’ of EU affairs is attractive, inquisitive and ruthless. She gets a job first as an intern, then as an assistant. That creates one line of attack. Simultaneously, she is researching her PhD (perhaps on EU energy policy, or trade relations with Russia, or some other topic of interest to the Kremlin). In one sense her behaviour is entirely legitimate. It is not a crime to ask questions flirtatiously, or to sleep with officials who answer them. Her identity may be forged, but is more often completely legitimate: perhaps acquired during a brief but perfectly convincing marriage to a Bulgarian. Only a detailed security vetting would uncover a family connection with Soviet-era intelligence structures and a stint learning spycraft in Russia. This ‘student’ (an amalgam of some real-life examples) will probably avoid any position where she comes under direct scrutiny: a job at NATO, for example, or in the commission’s new External Action Service. But her flatmates, bedmates or officemates may work in just such roles, and she will be only one step behind. Indeed, secretaries in sensitive offices in the European Union’s institutions turn out surprisingly often to have been born in the core countries of the former Soviet Union. They have EU passports now and it would be a suspicious soul who begrudged them a chance to make the best of the careers open to them. Nobody seems bothered by their presence or willing to check up on them; and if they did, it would be hard to know if a regular trip to see family in Russia was just that, or included a meeting with a spy agency. Such people are one arm of the Russian effort abroad and I will return to them later. But when they are not available, Russia’s spymasters turn to another reservoir of potential agents: the diaspora.