Russia desperately wants to sway international public opinion, and the most effective way to do it is though journalists and influencers. So in addition to their own media outlets like Sputnik and Russia Today, they want to attract more independent (and international) journalists that will project their point of view.

In the beginning of May, journalists from Southeast Asia received an email inviting them to a “one-of-a-kind media delegation to the Special Military Operation zone in Eastern Ukraine.” The email was from an Alexander Dugin-affiliated Eurasian Movement in Russia and its international arm, Eurasia Strategies.

According to the email, the main selling point of the media tour is “content that will enable [journalists] to go viral and elevate [their] media outlet to a new level.” The whole tour, including round trip transportation from each journalist’s home country, is free of charge and even includes per diem pay.

The tour is planned to begin in Moscow. Journalists will then be taken to the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhe regions where interviews with local residents and political leaders will be facilitated. Tour organizers will also provide translation, security, interviews, and exclusive access to local politicians, opinion leaders, and media personalities. The email also mention being able to “plan a series of engagements with local stakeholders” upon prior request.

The email also includes an official reason for the tour: “There has not yet been a foreign correspondent delegation from Southeast Asia to the Special Military Operation. We think this is a mistake.” However, the trip’s main objective is to highlight Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s alleged crimes in the Donbas region, as the email states the tour’s “priority is to help [journalists] see what’s going on because right now the people of Eastern Europe suffer from a media blackout about the challenges they face.” The email also mentioned the media tour should be approached “as a human-interest story rather than a high-level interview opportunity.”

Trying to present itself as a legitimate Western- style organization, the Eurasian Movement also highlighted their commitment to journalistic ethics. The email reads, “There will be zero editorial influence or control. You will be free to write about what you see.” Even the issue of faith is broached, assuring potential participants that “Russia is a multifaith nation” and that the “Eurasian Movement is made up of members from all religious backgrounds, and we respect faith in God to the utmost extent.”

Of course the issue of legality could not be ignored, so potential participants are assured the media tour will not fall under mercenary or warzone statutes and, if needed, the necessary paperwork would be provided to national authorities. The email then cites China’s Phoenix TV as an example of an international media outlet freely working with no legal repercussions in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Interestingly, the dates for the tour will not be revealed to participants until after they sign a non-disclosure agreement. Disclosing the identity of fellow journalists is also not permitted.

For Russia, organizing such media tours is not something new. They’ve done it for years in Syrian pro regime territories. But the trips were not particularly effective when Western journalists were invited. Both journalists and their audiences assume that a Russian-curated itinerary usually means exposure only to what is meant to be seen. However, such a tour for journalists from developing countries may prove to be more effective for three reasons.

First, the population of the recently invited countries are more pro-Russian to begin with. Second, the only other way for these media organizations to report from the field is by  sending their journalists to Ukraine themselves, something that is cost-prohibitive. And not only it is expensive to maintain a journalist there ( around $500 per day), entering Ukraine now requires several hard-to-get visas (including a Schengen visa).

It is up to each invited journalist whether to take part in such a propaganda trip, but just the existence of such a tour reveals a major problem in international media that Russia is exploiting. If the West does not want Russia to be the main voice informing the media in developing countries, they should support local journalists not only in domestic coverage, but also the coverage of international news.

Dear Dictators all over the world,

No matter how many crimes against humanity you commit at home, as long as you side with Russia, you are just fine. Russia will help you stay in power and will even ensure you are still accepted by the international community.

This is how current events in the Middle East read to me. The recent diplomatic whitewashing of Syria’s president, Bashar Al-Assad, sends a clear message that those who ally with Russia and its allies (in this case, Iran) will find protection and intervention. And this is not just a Middle Eastern issue. It presents a much larger problem, not only for the populations of African and Latin American countries, but also for Western democracy.

            Who are these dictators Russia seeks to ally with? Totalitarian leaders of poor countries whose nondemocratic leadership struggles to keep power without military force and outside help. In return for alliance with Russia, Russia and its other allies will not only help keep those dictators in power using their own force (like the Wagner group), but will also later protect those dictators from any international restrictions incurred for relying on such help.

What proof does the existing pro-Russian alliance have for its ability to do this? They’ve just taken the hardest such case and succeeded. The top dictator in the world is still Assad, president of Syria, and he has now become the poster boy for pro-Russian ability.

            Not only has Assad retained power after a decade of civil war, but, with the help of Iran and Russia, he is not even an outcast anymore (at least in the Middle East). In addition to recently being readmitted to the Arab League, Egypt’s foreign minister visited Damascus in February. In April, Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat also made a trip to the Syrian capital and met with Assad. Other indications of his acceptance include the United Arab Emirates not only hosting a recent visit from Assad but reopening their embassy in Damascus. In April, Saudi Arabia also announced they would reopen their embassies and resume flights, and flights to Damascus are needed because tourists, journalists, and politicians are now visiting Syria regularly, often on Russian-facilitated tours. One of the earlier movements toward reacceptance was Jordan reopening its border with Syria in 2021.

Russia is also currently working on normalizing relations between Syria and Turkey. Meetings on the ministry of defense level just happened in Moscow, and now Russia is hosting a meetings between Russian, Turkish, Iranian, and Syrian ministers of foreign affairs. This meeting will also takes place in Moscow.

To put it less diplomatically, the same Russia that invaded its neighbor Ukraine and is still shelling its towns, along with Iran—that still supports international terrorist organizations and provides the weapons Russia uses to kill Ukrainian civilians—have successfully reinstated Syria that has used chemical weapons on its own civilians and killed half a million people from the international community.

         The new role of China in the Middle East is also emphasized. Earlier in May, Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, visited Assad and they issued a joint statement saying that their China-brokered agreement in March to resume diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia constituted a "significant step toward positive developments that are in the interest of the stability of the Middle East."

           These developments are changing the power structure of the Middle East. Not only does this move it closer to Russia’s plans for the region, but it moves Russia one step closer to their publicized new world order. And they do not plan to stop with the Middle East. This summer, President Raisi plans to visit Africa and repeat the tour Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov made earlier this year. Raisi plans will bring him to visit South Africa, a member of BRICS and an extremely influential country on the continent.

It is understandable that the US is now preoccupied with another part of the world, namely Europe, but so is Russia. And if the West does not take a harder stance against Russian diplomatic efforts in non-Western countries, there is a real danger of losing them to Russian influence. Strong words from the International Criminal Court about prosecuting Putin are not enough, something the US and Putin also learned from their dealings with Assad in Syria. Not only was Assad not arrested after what he did to his country, he was recently readmitted to Interpol, the same international organization originally founded to arrest such people.

One of the West’s main strategies against Russia’s war on Ukraine have been sanctions. The reasoning is that sanctions would hurt the Russian economy which in turn would lead to a decrease of civilian support for the leadership, forcing Putin to stop the war. But while sanctions are indeed hurting the economy in the long run, so far Putin’s electorate has been benefiting from the conflict.

Educated Russians, especially those from the major cities, are moving abroad in search of political freedom and employment in the global market, but as far as the government is concerned, this is not a problem. That population is potentially trouble anyway, a fifth column, to the current regime. Russia’s main electorate is still home and  as loyal to Putin as ever.

Putin’s main supporters are those who are less-educated and who live in small towns and remote rural areas. This group has not even felt Western sanctions yet because they neither travel abroad nor use international credit cards. And because their only source of news is mainstream television, they are Russia’s biggest consumers of propaganda.

Since last February, not only are they being told Russia is becoming the main world power, they also feel the power in the wallets. During this time of war, their wellbeing is actually improving thanks to a significant increase in government spending for social programs.

At the end of 2022, Russia published its 2023-2025 budget in which enormous amount of money (a third of the government budget) was rerouted toward social programs that benefit Putin’s main supporters—those on government welfare.

These supporters who benefit fall into four main categories. First, retirees. The new budget gave the more than 30 million people in Russia getting government pensions a 4.8% increase in pay. Second are the disabled and veterans. Starting in February 2023, monthly disability and veteran payments increased by 11.8%. The maximum one-time payment for a work-related injury has increased to $1,640 and monthly payments are $1,266.

A third constituent is families with children. No matter what a family’s income, it will receive $7,400 at the first child’s birth and $9,750 for the second born. And in 2023 alone, the government plans to provide an unprecedented $44 million in direct monthly cash payments to poor families with children under 18 years old. It is expected that an extra 10 million children will benefit from this program.

A fourth benefiting group is small family businesses, which includes home farms. Russia plans to provide $60 thousand in small businesses grants (up to $4,300 per) and $40 thousand for home farms (up to $2,500 per) In 2023. This program existed before 2022, but now payments are almost doubled.

To keep this population employed, not only was public sector employment frozen, but the government has subsidized private businesses so that they will not lay off workers. And in addition to direct business investments, the government has allowed a year-long extension on making payments for bills like insurance payments. Minimum wage was also increased by 6.3% in 2023.

As expected, the family income of those whose employment is directly related to the war is also increasing. In small towns and rural areas, there was previously little work for the head of households outside of the family farm and occasional seasonal work in northern region of the country. Now there is work in military factories. These factories, which are usually located in the remote towns of economically depressed regions now offer two to three daily shifts at a salary two times what it was.

Those mobilized into the armed forces are now sending $2,500 a month home, a sum that makes it possible for many families that could only afford to rent to finally become homeowners. According to Natalya Zubarevich, a professor at Moscow State University, the majority of mortgage down payments in 2022 were subsidized by government social programs. And while head of the household is deployed, his family pays no monthly mortgage or credit payments.

Even more lucrative is being wounded in battle which pays $37,500 for the incident to military personnel. In case of death, a military family is awarded $62,000 and all debt is forgiven. As a result, one BBC study showed that males from economically poor regions are more likely to join Russian military and as a result were overrepresented among those killed in Ukraine.

In addition to direct cash benefits, other social programs also benefit Russians in those same poor regions. For example, in January 2022, the federal government gave $4.5 million to more than 65 private medical centers in 15 Russian regions for subsidizing general-public medical treatments. In May of the same year, the government also allocated $15 million to several Russian regions to house the disabled and retired. Also the amount of money allocated to build new military family housing increased twice, once in 2023 to $1 million and then in 2024 to $1.4 million.

As a result of those and other government initiatives, official Russia’s unemployment level reached historic lows in 2022 and the poverty level decreased by 0.5%. Putin supporters view such economic developments as positive signs of Russia’s power. This is also one of the reasons that pushes poor people in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine to take Russian passports and support integration of their region into Russia.

So far Putin is successfully buying the loyalty of his supporters, but how long can it last? Since the majority of that money are direct transfers from the federal government, here it all depends on cat and mouse game of sanctions. The West is trying to apply sanctions, yet Russia is doing everything to mitigate their negative consequences.

According to its official budget, Russia does not plan to decrease spending on military and law enforcement for the next two to three years. It also assumes that the current sanctions will be in place until at least 2025. In other words, Russia has no intention of do anything to get those sanctions lifted. At the same time, Russia realizes it will take time to restructure its economy to be East (as opposed to West) oriented. So how do they plan to finance their budget deficit? To use money from the national wealth fund, at least for 2023.

Main question so far is the price of oil and gas, Russia’s main export. But even in its worst-case scenario, Putin’s regime will be able sustain militarization of its economy while continuing to buy the loyalty of its supporters for at least this year.

Recently, the Iranian government officially complained to Iraq about the US operating too freely on Iraqi territory and demanded Iraq to put a stop to it. At the same time, the US and Israel are mirroring those complaints, telling Iraq it allows Iran too much freedom to operate. The Iraqi government and territory may be host to a potential conflict between major international powers.

According to Iraqi security forces, a letter sent by Iran’s Quds force through Hezbollah to accuses the Iraqi government of being “a state of the US” because the US is doing more in Iraq than just training security forces. According to them, US drones and airplanes used to spy on Syria and Iran are taking off from Iraq and Iraq is not doing enough to stop it.

This letter followed other recent negative developments in the region. Earlier this month, 34 rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, and Iran is very likely to be behind those attacks. At the very least, they weaponizing the responsible groups. And because Iran does not border Lebanon, the only way to supply those weapons was to move them through Iraq and then Syria. After this, both the US and Israel demanded Iraq stop supporting Iran by allowing them to move weapons and avoid sanctions through Iraq’s territory.

Weapons movement is just a consequence of an even more pressing issue—Iranian military bases in Iraq, bases that even the Iraqi government can’t enter. The most notorious such base is Jurf Al Sakhar, once a Sunni village but now a Hezbollah and Quds force base. The local population of Jurf Al Sakhar were forcefully displaced, and of course the West is demanding the base be closed and the local population allowed to return.

This Iraq-US clash which is putting pressure on Iraq’s governmental relations with the two regions is only half of the problem for Iraq leadership. In addition to discord at the governmental level, tensions on the street have also grown over the last month as conflict between the Sunni and Shia in Iraq have refired for a very unexpected reason—a recent increase in the popularity of Baath Party.

A month ago, Saddam Hussein's oldest daughter announced she would be back with more power and there is a revival of Baath party music and Saddam Hussain pictures on Iraqi social media. Pro-Iranian forces see the phenomenon as a psychological operation from the West. According to them, this notion that the Baath party will make a comeback could empower the Sunni population of Iraq. After the war with ISIS, the Sunni’s have been marginalized by pro-Iranian Shia authorities, and a resurgence of Sunni power is a threatening proposition for pro-Iranian groups.

So in preparation for a possible military confrontation and civilian uprising against pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, Iran is moving more weapons to their Iraqi bases, and particularly to those located in Sunni majority towns. And feeling pressure from not only official US but local population, pro-Iranian militias intelligence increased arrests of people they suspect of providing information to the US or those they think could be working for Baath party.

Iran’s concern is understandable, as is why they are pushing Iraq to abandon US relations. US is trying to do the same by pushing Iraq to decrease Iranian influence on its territory. And with events heating up, Iraq will soon have to choose.

Sadly, regardless whatever decision the Iraqi government makes, it will be a dangerous one for its citizens.

As Ramadan ended on Friday, April 21, foreign ISIS women serving prison sentences in Baghdad’s Rusafa prison began a hunger strike. They have only one demand. They want their freedom.

It began when several inmates from Russia, Belarus, and Tajikistan started a hunger strike. By the next day, information about the strike had spread all over prison and they were soon joined by other foreign women, first those from other former Soviet Union countries and then women from Turkey.

One strike participant from Dagestan, sentenced to 20 years for terrorism, explained how news spread. “During the daily walk in the yard, women asked us why we were doing it [the strike] and now our ranks are increasing. We get messages like ‘Cell 15 and 16 is joining us’ and ‘Several women from cell nine have also stopped eating.’” The majority of these women are only refusing food, but there are some who also refusing water. Though prison guards continue to bring food and leave it outside the cells, so far it has remained untouched.

When the ISIS women were arrested after Tal Afar, the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq liberated by Iraqi military in 2017, they were sentenced to varying prison terms ranging from five years to life in prison. The prison houses several hundred women from a dozen countries including former Soviet Union, France, Syria, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, and Trinidad. Some of them even continue to support ISIS using contraband cell phones to spread ISIS propaganda and coordinate money transfers between group members outside the prison.

Several years ago, the majority of children belonging to these women were repatriated and reunited with their relatives. And this year those inmates sentenced to five years (three Tajikistan nationals and three Russian nationals) were released and returned to their home countries. Those women who remain behind bars with longer sentences see this as unfair and are demanding to be repatriated. Inmates have recorded several video addresses where, with blurred faces, they demand to be released. They say they were wrongfully convicted of terrorism, gave statements under pressure from Iraqi security services, and did not have access to lawyers.

They also complain they have no visitation from family members and are separated from their children. They also mention food quality and the absence of medical services, which are indeed major problems in Iraqi prisons. Inmates from Azerbaijan and Turkey made a video in their language addressing their government. “Either take us home or we will die here,” said Russian-speaking women in her video address.

But these videos are not only addressed to the home governments of these women. They have already been widely circulated by ISIS telegram channels with a hashtag #RusafaLibre and have already been reedited to include ISIS nasheeds (music) and slogans about the urgent need for ISIS to liberate that prison.

It is possible that their sentences are disproportionally long for the crimes they committed, but being adults when they joined the group, those women understood Iraq’s harsh laws for membership in terrorist organizations. At the same time, the conditions in Iraq’s prisons are clearly in need of improvement. And this is the case not only for the foreign women who are serving their sentences actually in much better conditions then Iraqi inmates, but for all inmates in the country.

One of the main elements of Russia's new foreign policy strategy, made public just the day before taking on the presidency of UN Security Council, is the idea of a multipolar world. But what does Russia mean by multipolar, and how do they plan to achieve it?

Very open about their plans, Russia states in their new "Concept of the Foreign Policy" document, that this idea of a multipolar world requires, in part, to “eliminate the vestiges of domination by the US and other unfriendly states in global affairs, [and] create conditions to enable any state to renounce neo-colonial or hegemonic ambitions.” This dislike for Western leadership in international affairs is nothing new, but what is different is Russia's concrete plans to shift the current world order by increasing their own influence in existing international organizations.

Russia plans to start by “restoring the UN's role as the central coordinating mechanism in reconciling the interests of UN Member States and their actions in pursuit of the goals of the UN Charter.” In particular, Russia wants to “exclude from international relations the practice of taking illegal unilateral coercive measures in violation of the UN Charter” by giving the UN sole power to apply international sanctions.

Russia clearly understands that using the UN to apply sanctions would, in reality, almost eliminate sanctions, simply because reaching an agreement at UN, especially on such an issue, is almost impossible. And because Russia itself and many of its already allies are under sanctions (and Western sanctions is what prevents the majority of countries from allying with Russia), this issue is crucial for them.

            At the same time, while increasing UN's authority in issuing sanctions, Russia also wants to reduce world dependence on US-centered international organizations such as UN, World Bank, and IMF. To accomplish that, Russia plans to increase the power of smaller, regional organizations by “supporting regional and sub-regional integration within friendly multilateral institutions, dialogue platforms and regional associations in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.”

Russia's strategy is clear. In major IGOs like UN, IMF, and World Bank where the ballot structure is one country-one vote, Russia would need to get majority of the countries on its side to increase its influence, an almost impossible task. But in case of regional organizations, having good relations with the most powerful country in the region will allow Russia to have influence on the whole region. This strategy is not only possible for Russia, it is also much cheaper.

Russia’s top priority organization to influence is BRICS. This organization consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa; and is seen as a main rival to the West dominated G7 that consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US. So since the invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia's main diplomatic efforts have been targeting BRICS countries. Within the first months of 2023, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavorov visited Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, and South Africa, one of the strongest economies in Africa and is in constant contact with China and India.

Clearly Russia believes BRICS has the potential to be the new main international organization and has already announced the creation of the New Development Bank, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the BRICS payment system, and BRICS basket reserve currency. And this initiative is already successful because BRICS membership has now become desirable for other countries. In 2022, several countries like Algeria, Argentina, and Iran have already applied for membership.

The only alliance missing from BRICS coalition is the Middle East region and, more broadly, the Muslim world. And there Russia also has a plan. Interestingly in its new foreign policy doctrine, Russia openly talks about their plans for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—an organization where Russia is not even a member state (only an observer state). The first step is to reintroduce Syria and Iran into the world diplomatic circles. If done successfully, those countries could dominate the region. Then Russia plans to “reconcile differences and normalize relations among the Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as well as between these states and their neighbors (primarily the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Arab countries, the Syrian Arab Republic and its neighbors, the Arab countries and the State of Israel), including within the efforts aimed at a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian question.”

            In Eurasia, Russia’s first foreign policy goal is the ally with those countries on its borders. This is not only politically important, but it also will allow Russia to decrease the negative consequences of Western sanctions through parallel import. Russia plans to “promote the processes of regional and interregional economic integration that serve Russia's interests, first of all, within the Union State, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS as well as with a view of shaping the Greater Eurasian Partnership.” Inroads with the four organizations that unite the majority of its surrounding countries would ensure political, economic, and military cooperation on all sides.

Russia clearly has a very ambitious goal of changing the world order by decreasing Western influence and increasing its own. The problem is their plan is not impossible. In fact, it's quite the opposite. If executed well and met with no substantial resistance from the West, Russia could in fact significantly increase its power in international diplomacy in just several years.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first modern war to feature a major cyber warfare component. While the conventional fighting in Ukraine often resembles the trench warfare of the early twentieth century, the evolving battle for cyber dominance is highly innovative and offers important insights into the future of international aggression.

The priority for Ukraine’s cyber forces is defense. This is something they have long been training for and are excelling at. Indeed, Estonian PM Kaja Kallas recently published an article in The Economist claiming that Ukraine is “giving the free world a masterclass on cyber defense.”

When Russian aggression against Ukraine began in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russia also began launching cyber attacks. One of the first attacks was an attempt to falsify the results of Ukraine’s spring 2014 presidential election. The following year, an attempt was made to hack into Ukraine’s electricity grid. In 2017, Russia launched a far larger malware attack against Ukraine known as NotPetya that Western governments rated as the most destructive cyber attack ever conducted.

In preparation for the full-scale invasion of 2022, Russia sought to access Ukraine’s government IT platforms. One of the goals was to obtain the personal information of Ukrainians, particularly those working in military and law enforcement. These efforts, which peaked in January 2022 in the weeks prior to the invasion, failed to seriously disrupt Ukraine’s state institutions but provided the country’s cyber security specialists with further important experience. “With their nonstop attacks, Russia has effectively been training us since 2014. So by February 2022, we were ready and knew everything about their capabilities,” commented one Ukrainian cyber security specialist involved in defending critical infrastructure who was speaking anonymously as they were not authorized to discuss details.

Ukrainian specialists say that while Russian hackers previously tried to disguise their origins, many now no longer even attempt to hide their IP addresses. Instead, attacks have become far larger in scale and more indiscriminate in nature, with the apparent goal of seeking to infiltrate as many systems as possible. However, the defenders of Ukraine’s cyberspace claim Russia’s reliance on the same malware and tactics makes it easier to detect them.

The growing importance of digital technologies within the Ukrainian military has presented Russia with a expanding range of high-value targets. However, efforts to access platforms like Ukraine’s Delta situational awareness system have so far proved unsuccessful. Speaking off the record, Ukrainian specialists charged with protecting Delta say Russian hackers have used a variety of different methods. “They tried phishing attacks, but this only resulted in our colleagues having to work two extra hours to block them. They have also created fake interfaces to gain passwords and login details.”

Ukrainian security measures that immediately detect and block unauthorized users requesting information have proved effective for the Delta system and similar platforms. Russian hackers have had more success targeting the messaging platforms and situation reports of various individual Ukrainian military units. However, due to the fast-changing nature of the situation along the front lines, this information tends to become outdated very quickly and therefore is not regarded as a major security threat.

Ukraine’s cyber efforts are not exclusively focused on defending the country against Russian attack. Ukrainians have also been conducting counterattacks of their own against Russian targets. One of the challenges they have encountered is the comparatively low level of digitalization in modern Russian society compared to Ukraine. “We could hack into Russia’s railway IT systems, for example, but what information would this give us? We would be able to access train timetables and that’s all. Everything else is still done with paper and pens,” notes one Ukrainian hacker.

This has limited the scope of Ukrainian cyber attacks. Targets have included the financial data of Russian military personnel via Russian banks, while hackers have penetrated cartographic and geographic information systems that serve as important infrastructure elements of the Ukraine invasion. Ukrainian cyber attacks have also played a role in psychological warfare efforts, with Russian television and radio broadcasts hacked and replaced with content revealing suppressed details of the invasion including Russian military casualties and war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.

While Ukraine’s partners throughout the democratic world have provided the country with significant military aid, the international community has also played a role on the cyber front. Many individual foreign volunteers have joined the IT Army of Ukraine initiative, which counts more than 200,000 participants. Foreign hacker groups are credited with conducting a number of offensive operations against Russian targets. However, the large number of people involved also poses significant security challenges. Some critics argue that the practice of making Russian targets public globally provides advance warning and undermines the effectiveness of cyber attacks.

Russia has attempted to replicate Ukraine’s IT Army initiative with what they have called the Cyber Army of Russia, but this is believed to have attracted fewer international recruits. Nevertheless, Russia’s volunteer cyber force is thought to have been behind a number of attacks on diverse targets including Ukrainian government platforms and sites representing the country’s sexual minorities and cultural institutions.

The cyber front of the Russo-Ukrainian War is highly dynamic and continues to evolve. With a combination of state and non-state actors, it is a vast and complex battlefield full of gray zones and new frontiers. Both combatant countries have powerful domestic IT industries and strong reputations as hacker hubs, making the cyber front a particularly fascinating aspect of the wider war. The lessons learned are already informing our knowledge of cyber warfare and are likely to remain a key subject of study in the coming decades for anyone interested in cyber security.

Article first published in UkraineAlert (Atlantic Council)

In the beginning of April 2023, Russia took the rotating presidency position on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Russia’s tenure in this position has already been bad for the council, but the worst is yet to come. In the UNSC, Russia has rendered the West helpless by putting them in a comprising position and at present the West cannot (or will not)  do anything to change the situation.

            Since Russia attacked neighboring Ukraine and then blocked UN action to stop the war, there had been a lot of talking about kicking Russia out of the security council. But not only has that not happened, Russia has increased its standing in the UN. Exactly one year after President Zelensky called for the UN to remove Russia or dissolve the UN completely, Russia has become the presidential nation of the security council and has already organized what was basically a propaganda meeting with a wanted war criminal as a guest speaker.

            At an April 5, 2023, security council meeting about Russia kidnapping Ukrainian children, Russia showed a lengthy propaganda video which claimed it was saving children from the warzone. Then Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova addressed the council in a long speech. Like Putin, Lvova-Belova has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court for her role in kidnapping Ukrainian children.

As expected, Western UN members expressed their outrage on twitter, by making public statements, and by not allowing a public broadcast of her speech. Several members even walked out of the meeting room while she was speaking. But these attempts at saving-face have been the best opposition Western delegates have been able to manage.

Lvova-Belova’s speech, the video of which is widely available online, is a clear signal of Russia’s leading (and not catching up) role in the international arena. And since Russia is playing a long game, this show of power is vital. To gain partners among non-democratic countries, Russia is out to prove they can do anything they want, whether the West likes it or not, and the UNSC is turning out to be the perfect proving ground.

In addition to events concerning the Russia-Ukraine war, the UNSC still has other world-conflict issues to address which require the whole council’s participation, and now Western delegates find themselves having to choose between two bad options. The first option is to work with Russia on those issues, but in doing so, they have to cooperate with Russia’s leadership. The other option is to sabotage Russia’s leadership by not cooperating. Doing this, however, would alienate other countries whose problems are currently with the security council. One example is the crises in Haiti, a pressing issue that the UNSC should respond to immediately.

On one side, the US has called other Western countries to still try and be productive , but the council’s work is clearly being hindered. Not only is Russia intentionally slowing things down, Western organizations and experts are not answering Russia’s call to participate in the meetings. “Not many non-Security Council members ask to attend meetings this month, and there are not many speakers agreeing to speak,” commented a UN Security Council staff member. “So little gets done, and we have significantly more free time now.”

Meanwhile, the Russian delegation is using the meetings to publicize their own agenda. At the meeting on arms control violations, they mentioned Ukraine was selling Western weapons to criminal and terrorist groups, and according to Russian propaganda, the delegates also plan to raise the issue of the assassination of a Russian propagandist. They also benefit by accusing the West of playing politics instead of helping countries that are waiting for UNSC decisions.

So far, in the first half of April, Russia managed to fully achieve its goals, but more ambitious aspirations are planned for the second half, when Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov plans to chair the UNSC meetings in New York himself. And here again there is not much West can do but observe.

Technically, the US could refuse to give him a visa, but that is not likely to happen. Russia is keeping a US journalist hostage, and his release is priority for Biden. At the same time, visas has been delayed for Lavrov and his delegation, a fact used by Russian propaganda to its advantage.

So if Lavrov arrives in the US, he will chair two meetings. The first is about the Middle East, a broad topic, and it is not clear what to expect. It might include an unexpected list of speakers that Russia, using its UNSC presidency privileges, could announce as late as night before the meeting, leaving other countries no time to react (like they did by inviting former commander of FARC to the meeting in Colombia last week).

Russia could also try to use this to invite Bashar Assad to speak, and that way again signal to African and Latin American dictatorships that Russia can whitewash a Syrian dictator and reintroduce him into international diplomatic circles despite all he has done—as long as he sides with Russia.

The second meeting is about effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the United Nations charter, which will focus on “how to build a new multipolar world order based on sovereign equality, while maintaining the global balance of power and ensuring the conditions for humanity’s steady advance.” This subject will give Lavrov a great opportunity to further Russian propaganda. This meeting could be particularly important for Russia because, according to the Russian concept of foreign policy (published they day before acquiring the UNSC presidency), the security council should be the only institution allowed to authorize sanctions, and should also include more non-Western countries.

No matter how these meetings go, they will benefit Russia. Russia has already put the West in a bad position and exploited all the UNSC rules to its advantage, and as long as the US and Europe are not ready to make any drastic changes to stop it, Russian will continue to do so.

In an interview with the Prime Minister of Mali—an African country that made the reputationally-risky vote in the UN against an immediate end of war in Ukraine and welcomed Wagner group to the country —he made the reason for his alliance with Russia very clear. “I lived in the Soviet Union for 11 years. I am a Muscovite,” he said in the perfect Russian he had learned while studying at Moscow’s Technical University of Communications and Informatics.

After beginning of the war with Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions from the West, Russia turned its quest for allies to Africa. And to increase both short and long term influence in those nations, Russia turned to proven soft-power tactics—educational partnerships.  In the last year alone, Russia has taken major steps to increase educational cooperation with several key countries on the African continent.

The first step was introducing the Russian language to an African audience, which is no easy task. Russian is one of the hardest languages to learn for non-native speakers. To address this issue, Russia started an online program, “Distant Russian in Africa” last year. On this site, African students can learn the language and take different classes in Russian.

To supplement online education with in-person classes, Russia then announced opening Russian language centers for African school children. The execution of these projects were tasked to different regional universities in Russia. For example, Voronezh Teaching University will open a Russian language center in DRC and Republic of Congo; in Zambia and Namibia, Russian language centers will be supported by a university in Moscow; and Chelyabinsk University will provide Russian language teachers for Mali and Senegal. To signal educational partnerships instead of a one-way influence, Russia has also announced that African languages, such as Swahili and Amharic, will be taught in schools in Russia.

Also in Africa there are Russian schools overseen by the Russian embassy. And their importance in teaching patriotism and popularization of Russian language and culture was even highlighted by Russia’s minister of foreign affairs Lavrov this week, in his special video address to teachers at those schools.

During his visit to Africa in January 2023, he also visited one such school in Angola. There not only Russian but Angolan children study. According to schools Instagram page, patriotic education plays an important part in the school’s curriculum. In one lesson, a class on courage, students at this school discussed topics like special military operation in Ukraine and some students joined all-Russia "Young Army" National Military Patriotic Social Movement Association, funded by Russian Ministry of Defence.

To increase this cooperation and promotion of Russia’s language and culture,  the government has turned to the Russian community, which is what they call Russia expatriates and African locals who were educated in Russia and have returned to their home countries. They promised to support language and culture centers in their countries.

Because most important educational influence happens in higher education, Russia continues to increase cooperation with major universities on the continent. In December 2022, the St. Peterburg Technical University signed a cooperative agreement with universities in Mali and Senegal. And on January 27, 2023, the University of Kinshasa, DRC’s capital, even erected a monument of Russian cosmonaut Gagarin as a symbol of the educational cooperation between the two countries.

Russia already has universities for African students, such as the Egyptian-Russian University in Egypt and the  Moscow-based Russian University of Peoples Friendship, that was established in 1960 to assist countries that had recently achieved independence from colonial powers.  These also serve to further Soviet foreign policy goals in nonaligned countries. And in 2021, Russia opened another, the Russian-African Network University, with a goal of connecting African and Russian universities under one umbrella university.  One of the main initiators, at least symbolically, and hosts of this project is the Crimean Federal University based in Russian-occupied Crimea.

In the summer of 2022 while the war with Ukraine was already going on, this university hosted a group of medical students from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Tunis, Libya, Sudan and Nigeria. Doing so Russia wants to show to Africa that Crimea is part of Russia. And although information about upcoming Ukraine counteroffensive in Crimea is already public, the university plans to increase the number of African students in summer 2023.

In addition to historically-popular subjects for African students, like engineering and medical sciences, Russia is now also promoting special educational programs in such areas as journalism and even religion. For example, in the last year, Russian orthodox churches  taught students from Cameron, Malavi, Nigeria and South Africa and journalists from Cameron, Nigeria, Tunis, Ethiopia and South Africa.

According to the Russian International Affairs Council’s own analytics, Russian investment in education in Africa helps improve Russia’s image and will allow an increase in non-commodity export. The cooperation portrays Russia as a partner that is helping to solve problems in African regions, and recruiting African students to Russian universities will allow Russia to create a pool of professionals who could be future leaders. These future African leaders will then promote cooperation between their countries and Russia even further.

The success of this strategy has already been proven by Soviet Union. “Education is the most important cooperation,” said Dansa Kourouma, president of the Republic of Guinea National Council of Transition, at a Russian-Africa Summit in 2022. “I finished university in Guinea, but it was built by the Soviet Union, and I am in my position now because of the great education I received there.”

While the number of African students currently studying in US universities is around 49,000, the number of African students in Russia is just slightly lower, 35,000. But Putin has an even more ambitious plan. Last month he  doubled the number of full scholarships available to African students. That and the low cost of education and life in Russia (compared to the US) makes it a very desirable place to study for ambitious Africans.

Recently, US Vice President Kamela Harris went to Africa to try and decrease Russia’s increasing influence. In particular, the US government committed to an over $7 billion investment to 27 private sector companies meant to promote  climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation across Africa. In terms of soft power, according to the 2022 US strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa, the US is actively seeking to strengthen African partnerships by promoting democracy, fostering open societies, supporting Africa’s conservation efforts, and bolstering trade between the continents. Part of the strategy includes increase involvement of America’s African Diaspora, including African Americans, descendants of formerly enslaved Africans.

But slavery is an issue Russia uses to its advantage. They constantly remind Africans that Russia did not have African slaves like the US or African colonies like Western Europe did, facts that make it even easier for Russia to project its soft power.

Less than a month ago, main Russian university for foreign students- the Russian University of Friendship of Nations retuned its original name, Patrice Lumumba University in honor of a DR Congo Prime minister allegedly assassinated by US and Belgium. The name university lost in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In advance of Ukraine’s counter offensive, the US and other Western partners are increasing a supply of tanks to Ukraine. To counter them, Russia has Iranian engineers (along with Russian colleagues) working around the clock to reverse engineer US made Javelins and other anti-tank weapons that have been captured on the Ukrainian frontlines. These weapons were retrieved by the Russian military and, in hopes of duplicating them, then delivered to Iran’s military research center.

       At the end of January, the US announced it was sending 31 M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Other allies also committed support; Germany will send Leopard 2 tanks and a Patriot missile battery, United Kingdom will send Challenger 2 tanks, and France will provide AMX-10 armored fighting vehicles. The whole Western world is counting on these provisions to be a game changer, in hopes these weapons will allow Ukraine to retake territory currently occupied by Russia. One high-level officer in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence explained why the West is so optimistic: “So far there is no Russian made, anti-tank weapon that can effectively destroy those tanks.”  

But Russians and Iranians also know that and are working hard to acquire such a weapon. The fastest and most effective way to do so is to reverse engineer US made anti-tank weapons like the Javelin, which has already proved very effective last year against Russian tanks on Ukraine frontlines.

But during the yearlong fighting in Ukraine, Russia has captured a significant number of western anti-tank weapons, a fact they have even highlighted in their propaganda. Those weapons were then shipped, either by air, via Syria and then by land; or directly by sea from Russia to Iran.  Military engineers are now working around the clock to replicate these weapons quickly. They are in a race—they need to develop an anti-tank weapon before Western military aid is actively used on the frontline. According to intelligence sources, Iran’s top engineers, assisted by their Russian colleagues, are developing prototypes in a research center in Isfahan.

On 9^th of April Russian propaganda already announce preparation of special units called “Tank hunters” whose task would be destroying Western made tanks such as Abrams and Leopard 2. But what weapons they would use to do so was not yet specified.

If Iranian and Russian engineers successfully build a copy of the Javelin anti-tank weapon, they would most likely produce them in Iran and deliver them to Russia via the same route Russia first delivered the original weapons, illegally by land through Iraq, to the airport in Syria, and then to Russia by air. Using this route, it would take around 10 days to move the weapons from a factory in Iran to Russian frontline positions, according to Iraqi intelligence sources.

Reverse engineering US weapons is an old Iranian practice. For example, Russia has actively used Shahid 171 drones in the Russia-Ukraine war. The Shahid 171 is a copy of the RQ-170 Sentinel, captured by Iran in 2011. And in 2019 Iran reverse engineered US RQ-4 Global Hawk shot down in strait of Hormuz. Iran is known for aggressively collecting every Western weapon they could get from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan with the goal of reverse engineering them.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has already been announced, and Russia is running low on weapons and ammunition. If they are to maintain their absorbed territory, Russia has to come up with something soon. Right now, in addition to having all of their military factories working in three shifts, Russian officials and Wagner group leadership are again asking their partners for whatever weapons they can spare. Russia is also considering the mass production of cheap and simple explosives made out of ammonium nitrate, in its fertilizer factories.

 So far Iran is helping Russia with drones and explosives, but if they are able to reverse engineer and produce Western made anti-aircraft weapons, it could cause a major problem.

Five years after ISIS was defeated in Iraq, many Iraqi families of ISIS victims have still not found justice through legal means. And because they do not see any legal way to hold ISIS members accountable, they are taking matters into their own hands. Instead of looking for justice, many families are now taking revenge.

Due to corruption, Iraqi courts tasked with prosecuting ISIS members have not proved a reliable source of justice. Neither have international efforts like the US-established UNITAD, which families consider nothing more than a governmental PR move. So those with family members who were either killed or raped by ISIS members have now turned to private investigators and assassins for help. These professionals are men hired to track down and kill guilty ISIS members.

The market for such services is thriving in formerly ISIS-occupied territories like TalAfar, Anbar and Mosul, and there is a lot of money involved. On average, the cost to find and kill an ISIS member in hiding is between 100 and 200 thousand dollars, a lot of money in a country in the middle of an unemployment crisis. But families are motivated to find a way to raise the money.

“Most often, [it is the] fathers of raped daughters looking for such services,” explained one private investigator. “Usually, the whole extended family collects money to pay for the job. It is a question of honor. Neighbors know that their daughter was raped, so if they [the family] do not avenge her, it is a shame for the family.”

During ISIS times, rape was often committed by a victim’s neighbor who had joined ISIS. For example, if such a neighbor asked a father for his daughter’s hand in the past and the father refused, the man now raped the daughter. His allegiance to the ISIS black flag gave him the power to do so without repercussion. These cases became widely known in the community and brought reproach on both the women who were raped and their families.

First the victim was stigmatized, and often could only then be married to a cousin as a second wife. This kept the issue within the family. But then the family itself had to decide between two courses of action—to either relocate to a place where the incident was not known or to seek revenge for the committed crime. Most choose revenge.

Because those rape cases were very localized, a family knew who the rapist was. But once ISIS fell from power, and the members who were left scattered, the problem then became locating the perpetrators. And because those who committed sex crimes know they will be hunted, they are careful to protect themselves, especially if they return home.

In one case, a perpetrator returned to Iraq and enlisted in Hashd al-Shabi, a local pro-government militia, hoping again to find protection in an organization. That meant his assassination had to be done more carefully and while the perpetrator was not in uniform. So on the weekend an assassin arranged to have a car accident with him. Then, when the accident turned into a heated argument, the assassin stabbed and killed the perpetrator with a knife.

Because this assassination required more planning and resources, the cost was almost two times the average price. Part of that price had included money the assassin could use to bribe his way through court after he was arrested for murder.

Though there are other rapists who returned to their hometown, most of them are trying to hide abroad, in Syria and Turkey or even in Europe.

There are also many people avenging the deaths of family members. Ali (name changed), a Turkman from Talafar is one of them. When ISIS had arrived in his hometown, he and his family had tried to escape to Sinjar but were caught. Six of his family members—both parents, two brothers, and two nephews were killed in front of him. Two of the killers were local ISIS members he recognized.

He and a surviving brother did manage to run away, but as soon as ISIS was defeated in 2017, he returned home. The first thing Ali did was go to the house those two ISIS members with the intent of avenging his family. Because they were not there, he hired an investigator who located both of them living abroad. In 2021, one of them was found murdered in Turkey. Ali even went abroad to confirm the identity of the second killer, and is currently trying to figure out how to get his revenge.

“Several times I have located ISIS members from Mosul in Idlib and Damascus [Syria],” explained one private investigator. “Those are relatively easy cases. It is easy to find them, and no one cares if something bad happens to them.”

Because there is a lot of money in revenge, there are also scammers taking money from families with no intention of finding or killing ISIS members. This makes the personal reputation of investigators and assassins very important. Information about those with a proven track record are shared among the families and friends of those who have suffered loss at the hand of ISIS.

It is the absence of legal ways to hold ISIS members accountable for their crimes in Iraq that have led to a new spiral of violence and killings. And as long as there are no governmental mechanisms to prosecute ISIS members and check corruption, there will be no peace in post ISIS territories.

While the Ukrainian and Russian governments negotiate POW swaps, a parallel civilian work for the prisoners is going on behind the scenes. POW mothers on both sides of the war are helping each other locate prisoners and, to the best of their ability, ensure their wellbeing.

Once every several weeks, a Zoom conference takes place between the mothers of Ukrainian soldiers missing from the frontline and Russian soldiers imprisoned in Ukraine. Their conversations are about projects that might be mutually beneficial for their children. Currently, they are trying to increase the access of international organizations to Russian prisons where POWs are held. This will make it easier for prisoners to communicate with relatives on the other side of the frontline and ensure access to healthcare.

This bond of goodwill transcends politics. “We work under the understanding that all soldiers are someone’s children, so there is never any animosity between us,” explains Alla Makruch, who leads the initiative from the Ukrainian side. On the Russian side, her counterpart is Valentina Melnikova, director of the Union of Soldiers Mothers.

This cooperative is not new and was already successfully operating before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In 2019, Ukrainian mothers collected and delivered aid to Russian POWs in Ukraine. “Russian soldiers later called and thanked us,” said Alla Makruch. “Of course official Moscow did not like it. They said, ‘Look! Ukraine is treating Russian POWs so badly that even mothers committees had to intervene.’”

But after February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded parts of Ukraine, the cooperative became much harder to operate. There are no more active mothers’ groups in Russia-controlled territories of Ukraine, and the majority of mothers in Russia are afraid of security services, that tightened its grip in the country.

Yet Ukrainian mothers are still pushing for initiatives to increase the wellbeing of Russian POWs. For example, with their help a new policy was approved by Ukraine that goes even further than the Geneva convention in ensuring the wellbeing of prisoners. Russian POWs are given free, 15-minute phone calls every day to talk to their families. Of course, Ukrainian mothers are hoping that this policy will gain some reciprocity from Russia, but so far, that has not happened.

There are still a few Russian mothers working to improve the treatment of Ukrainian POWs. Union of Soldiers Mothers director, Valentina Melnikova, has filed requests with Russian authorities for information about which governmental department is in charge of POWs. She is also putting pressure on Moscow to provide the International Red Cross with access to prisons in Russia.

Both leaders of the partnership have confirmed that the Russian side is much less active. Not only are Russian POW mothers much less organized, they are afraid. The latest initiative Ukrainian mothers have enacted was getting security services to allow Russian mothers to come to Ukraine to visit their loved ones in prison. But so far, no Russian mothers have made the trip.

Melnikova said Russian mothers could not come for other reasons. They were not able to negotiate for military safe passage across the frontline, so the mothers would have to travel through Europe, which is expensive and requires a visa. But Alla Makruch thinks it is more than that. She believes Russian mothers have been threatened and told not to participate in this initiative: “We talked to several mothers who seemed very positive and wanted to come. But the next time [we call], they just do not pick up the phone.”

Alona Verbytska, an advisor to President Zelensky on the rights of military members, is occasionally invited to the POW mothers Zoom conferences and also helps the Ukrainian mothers navigate government institutions. Speaking for the Ukrainian mothers, she said, “We are hoping that Russia will start taking active steps to increase the wellbeing of our POWs there. But even if they don’t, we will continue taking such steps on our side.”

How is Iran, the second most sanctioned country in the world not only is still effectively functioning but is also able to provide support to Russia, the most sanctioned country in the world?  

Neighboring Iraq significantly helps mitigate negative consequences of sanctions. And it is the case because Iran has long held enormous political, economic, and military sway over neighboring Iraq.

Dollars. Iran is restricted on acquiring US Dollars so it is illegally getting dollars from Iraq. Knowing about this scheme very well, recently US imposed tighter control on dollars circulations in Iraq including making it mandatory to use an electronic system for transfers that required entering detailed information on the intended end-recipient of dollars. So to continue its dollars supply Iran had to come up with a more sophisticated scheme. Now Iran is buying gold in Iraq and then sells it abroad for dollars. That in turn increased price of gold in Iraq by 1/3 in just several months.

Oil Sales. Iranian oil industry is long under sanctions and as late as last month the United States imposed sanctions on new companies it accused of playing a critical role in the production, sale and shipment of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum to buyers in Asia. Those include six Iran-based petrochemical manufacturers or their subsidiaries and three firms in Malaysia and Singapore.

But it is not likely to have any major impact on Iraninan oil sales because they conveniently use Iraq to sell their oil under Iraqi documents. As Iran’s then-Petroleum Minister himself, Bijan Zangeneh, said in 2020: “What we export is not under Iran’s name. The documents are changed over and over, as well as [the] specifications.”

And there is not much that could be done to stop it because it is impossible to distinguish Iraqi oil from Iranian oil in the oil fields that are shared between the two neighboring countries. They are basically drilling from the same oil reservoirs, just from different sides of it.

Military Technology. Companies and countries supplying Iran with military technology could be held accountable as violators of sanctions, but it is not prohibited to sell them to Iraq. So pro Iran Iraqi militias that are officially part of Iraqi armed forces could buy advanced military technology and equipment and when it is approved by Iraqi government the sale will be facilitated by Iraqi embassy. A director of a major producer of optics in Europe (including night vision scopes for sniper rifles) in the interview explained “if the country (or a company based in that country) is not on sanctions list it is up to us to decide if we want to sell it to them. Of cause we do background checks but usually we will approve such sale if there are no clear red flags.”

Those weapons are then delivered to Iraq where they are stored in Iraqi military based and facilities, that Iran routinely uses as their own. The most known example of such a base is Jurf Al Sakhar, where even top Iraqi government officials and military members could not enter. Other bases are less known and hidden inside factories or civilian infrastructure for example. Such location of weapon storages makes it harder to target them by an airstrike.

And when needed, from there those weapons are moved by civilian trucks either to Iran or to Iran allies in Syria. One of such convoys was recently targeted by an airstrike on Iraq Syria border killing Iranian nationals.

West is trying hard to hurt Iran targeting one company with sanctions and one convoy with an airstrike at a time, but those are drops in a bucket that are easy for Iran to go around and they are not expected to significantly turn tables. Iraqi help for Iran to avoid sanctions is an elephant in the room that has to be addresses in a long-term political strategy focusing on significantly reducing Iranian influence on the country.  

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion last year, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) has exposed at least 600 Russian agents and spies operating within Ukraine. They have also initiated more than 1500 criminal proceedings for treason and espionage, 340 of which have already been sent to court.

Although this seems like a lot of Russian collaborators, most of them don’t pose much of a threat to Ukraine’s national security. It is true there are professional Russian intelligence agents in Ukraine who have worked in foreign intelligence for years. These agents work on sophisticated long-term projects that are hard to uncover. Rooting them out requires a lot of SBU counterintelligence (a division office that is already stretched thin), coordination between different SBU offices, and close collaboration with international partners.

But the majority of current collaborators recruited by FSB these days are inept at best and simply comical at worse. There are several reasons of this. First, there are few adequate people willing to help Russia left to choose from, so now the FSB is scratching the bottom of the barrel, recruiting those they possibly looked down on a year ago.

A second issue is internal problems within the FSB. The organization is not only rewarding mid-level management for the recruitment of subpar collaborators, these collaborators are being assigned tasks that are not even useful for Russia. Since good recruitment and completed task numbers are all that are required for bonuses and promotions, mid-level management are eager to inflate both with little regard for the quality and usefulness of either. FSB also does not value those they recruit and as a result, do not provide them with necessary training or even instructions on how to behave to not get caught.

With this in mind, I asked four high-level SBU counterintelligence officers from different regions of Ukraine, to tell me about the most ridiculous Russian collaborators they had come across. Here’s the top three:

#3 The Obvious One. On March 2023, SBU counterintelligence arrested an ethnic Russian from a Baltic state sent to blow up a transportation infrastructure in Rivne, thus disrupting the delivery of Western weapons to Ukraine. However, before arriving in Ukraine on February 19, 2023, the man had been in and out of Ukraine, fighting for Russia since 2014. First, he had fought with the group called Oplot, and then in the Han battalion of Donbas separatist forces. When the full-scale Russian invasion had begun last year, he fought against Ukraine forces in Zaporozhie and Kherson.

Needless to say, he was well-known to the SBU. “Since May of last year we’ve had all of his information,” commented one SBU officer. “We were very surprised that someone as “secret” as him would even think of entering Ukraine [again]. The guy probably honestly thought that because he has EU passport, he could enter Ukraine unnoticed.” The same officer then said, “Catching him, and those in the country he exposed, was a very easy and fast operation.”

#2 The Obscure One. The Ukraine uses a military-tech, situational awareness system called Delta to coordinate and share information between various military and law enforcement units. To gain access to the system, someone has to officially apply, explain why access is needed, and produce proper ID and documents. Then, if necessary, that same person may be interrogated and required to take a lie detector test.

Several months ago, a man applied to Delta by sending a fake ID and supporting documents. What was most surprising about the situation was how stupid his cover story was. Though he was a citizen of South Caucasus republic and did not speak a word of French, he claimed to work for a French security organization that did not even have a website. Here he was particularly unlucky because his case ended up on the desk of a security officer who spoke French fluently. Not only was the work phone number the man listed only activated days before he applied, there was no messagers associated with the number. His email address was also not a corporate one.

 But the strangest thing the Russian collaborator had included in his application was a letter supposedly from Ukraine’s prime minister. The letter was only two sentences long and had no stamps or signatures on it. And because the prime minister’s job is not directly related to security issues, the letter alone was enough to raise legitimacy questions.

 “How stupid could his FSB managers be to not even make a website for the company to make it look more or less legit?” commented an SBU counterintelligence officer. Agents from Delta’s security checking his documents were so amused, they started trolling him, asking for more and more supporting documents and pictures to see what else he could come up with. And he indeed sent them pictures of himself.

#1. The Technologically Advanced One. In December of 2022, SBU arrested a well-known, sixty-year-old Ukrainian activist of a defunct Communist party, closed in Ukraine for being pro-Russian. This man had stolen information about Ukrainian armed forces and law enforcement members, and was headed to Budapest where he planned to pass on the information to the Russian Embassy there. Although the information was sensitive, it was not secret. The SBU had been watching the collaborator and had controlled the information he was allowed to get.

However, the collaborator had believed it to be secret information and had also, interestingly, took the information across the border on a flash drive he had inserted into his anus. It is unclear as to why he did not just carry it in his pocket. No one on the Ukraine border checks personal belongings, not to mention a memory flash drive.

“And why not to just send it to Russia by email?” One SBU officer said.

“This guy definitely watched too many spy movies from the 1960s,” commented another SBU officer. “The only thing missing was a wig and sunglasses.”

Although these collaborators are easier to detect and arrest, it does not mean they are harmless. Investigating and arresting them still takes time and resources and distracts SBU counterintelligence officers from detecting other, more dangerous enemy collaborators.

“Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine last year, thirteen Russians working for FSB have been arrested illegally crossing into the US from Mexico,” US DHS sources said. Those thirteen individuals, among them two women, all used the same strategy. First they flew from Russia (through Turkey) to Cancun and then they asked for political asylum at a Mexico-US land border. And though they showed up at different times and at different border crossings between Arizona and California, they also all had similar stories.

They all claimed to have been prosecuted in Russia for being independent journalists, civil activists, or NGO workers. But those claims were far from reality. As each was detained on the border, US law enforcement found out their real occupations—agents for the Federal Security Service of Russian Federation (FSB). And at least two of them, who pretended to be journalists fleeing prosecution, were in fact tasked with spying on opposition journalists in the US.

One of the two further purported he had been recruited by the FSB while in prison in Russia—a weak cover since the internet media outlet they both claimed to work for is in fact pro-government. One of them is listed as author of at least one article, published in 2019, and the other one is not listed as an author at all.

Discovering the true identities of the thirteen Russians had taken time because they, like the majority of other crossing immigrants, arrived at the border without any documents. They claimed that the Mexican police had taken them. But according to DHS officers, after landing in Mexico, those asylum seekers most likely sent their documents to a trusted person already in the US.

After being detained at the border, all immigrants seeking asylum are taken to a detention facility where they wait for a court hearing. Currently, the wait time is between two and six months. If they are not granted asylum, they are deported to their country of origin. In the case of Russian immigrants, because there are no flights between US and Russia, they are sent home through a third country such as Turkey.

Russian security service agents trying to sneak into the US are not the only Russian nationals arrested on the border and then deported last year. Several ex-ISIS members from Caucasus also tried to cross the Mexico-US border illegally. But because they were internationally wanted—one had even taken part in ISIS propaganda videos—it was easier to identify them.

Several other high-profile defectors from Russian security services have come across the border, but compared to those who tried to hide their FSB affiliation, they had immediately revealed their identity and highlighted their willingness to cooperate. Those were handled by the FBI who would then check if they really wanted to defect or if it was just a cover story.

While many countries restricted the entrance of Russian citizens after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mexico was not one of them. Traveling there is still very easy for holders of Russian passports. The only thing a traveler needs to do is submit an electronic form in advance and pretend to be a tourist by booking roundtrip plane tickets and making a hotel reservation.

Interviewed Russian citizens who successfully made this trip to the US have said it is very rare for someone to be refused entry at the airport in Mexico. And although Mexican police understand those people intend to continue on to the US instead of vacationing in Mexico, the only problem those immigrants usually face is a demand for a bribe.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, more than 16,000 Russian citizens have sought political asylum in the US, according to a senior DHS official. Going through Mexico to get there is so popular that one of the many Russian-language social media groups discussing how to illegally cross the border has more than 21,000 members. According to US law enforcement, some of these groups are run by people affiliated with the Russian government. But other groups are manned by people running profitable businesses who offer clients services associated with illegal border crossing. These outlets offer advice on what to tell DHS officers to decrease chances of getting detained at the border; they advertise emigration lawyers in the US; they list hotels on the border; they help exchange rubles to dollars; they even smuggle pets across the border from Tijuana to San Diego.

This last service is especially popular. A person cannot request asylum on the border with a pet, and if a person is detained, his pet will be taken to a state shelter. The cost to smuggle them through is $450 for a cat and $500 for a dog, and if the owner is detained, the pet will be boarded with a trusted person in San Diego, and the owner charged an additional per day fee. And even those pets are crossing without documents. When coming through an airport, all animals need a veterinary passport confirming their health and required vaccinations, something dogs and cats being smuggled across the Mexico-US border are not required to have.

The increase in attempted crossings by those working for the Russian government is alarming and spreads the already thin Mexico-US border security forces even thinner. And although thirteen FSB agents have been arrested, DHS officials agree that others have most likely gotten through successfully and are already inside the US.

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