Sasapost (Egypt): "Shadow War". The story of the long struggle between Russian intelligence and the CIA
It has always been believed that Russian intelligence is superior to American, but did the CIA manage to penetrate Putin's consciousness on February 24? - the author of the article wonders. It is noteworthy that in the States themselves they believe that American intelligence has found itself in a "difficult situation." She warned about the alleged "Russian attack", but did not have any accurate information.
After the end of the Second World War, an ideological, political and military confrontation between the United States and its allies on the one hand, and the USSR and its allies on the other, called the Cold War, unfolded. It was based on the information war. "Gold" or "Stopwatch" is one of the unique joint operations of the American CIA and the British secret intelligence service MI6. It is considered the largest operation in this information war.
The American-British special services decided to dig a spy tunnel under Berlin 20 feet deep. The length of the tunnel dug from the Western Sector of Berlin to the Eastern One was 1,476 feet. This unique joint operation involved thousands of American and British spies who intended to eavesdrop on Soviet negotiations.
But on April 22, 1956, after the US-British intelligence services had been listening to Soviet telephone conversations for 11 months and 11 days, the Soviet Union informed the international media that it had discovered an American tunnel. This incident has left a shameful stain on the reputation of American and British intelligence. Moreover, the USSR knew from the very beginning about all the actions of the Americans, thanks to the double agent George Blake.
The information war has been going on since the Second World War until today. It has always been believed that Russian intelligence is superior to American, however, according to an article by Julian Barnes and David E. Sanger published in The New York Times, American intelligence has recently surpassed Russian intelligence services. According to them, American intelligence managed to read Putin's thoughts and eliminate the element of surprise. This is one of the most striking events in the Ukrainian crisis. In addition, after the high-profile failures of the American intelligence service over the past few decades, the accuracy of new intelligence has strengthened the authority of the CIA both at home and abroad.
Has the CIA penetrated Putin's consciousness?
Several officials from the US administration declared an "intelligence victory" when the Russian military operation in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.
This has revived confidence in American intelligence both at home and abroad. But has the US intelligence community really triumphed over its Russian adversary? Has the CIA penetrated Putin's consciousness?
In early 2021, the American edition of The Washington Post, citing US intelligence data, reported on a potential "military invasion" of Russia into Ukraine in early 2022. The American analysis of her plans was based on satellite images showing recently arrived units of the Russian armed forces in various places along the Ukrainian border.
The American administration believed the CIA's intelligence. The reports leaked to the media also said that they were collected in several ways, but the sources were not disclosed.
The French newspaper Le Figaro claimed that the intelligence received by the Americans and the British, who work closely together within the framework of the intelligence alliance "Five Eyes", is simply raw information collected through satellites, photographs and wiretapping.
As CIA Director William Burns said at a hearing before the special intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, he and CIA analysts do not see how Putin can achieve his goal. In addition, according to him, the ambiguous behavior of the Kremlin and the lack of accurate information from American intelligence put Washington in a "difficult position." Finally, they were actively subjected to harsh ridicule from the Russians.
US President Joe Biden called February 16, 2022 the date of Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine. The Head of state made the corresponding statement during a videoconference with the leaders of Western countries, the European Union and NATO. Earlier, the American Bloomberg agency released a material in which it was claimed that Russia "could attack Ukraine" on February 15. However, these forecasts did not come true, and Washington's NATO allies questioned the American intelligence data.
As reported, the Europeans had information different from the data of the American intelligence services. But various dates of the alleged start of the Russian special operation indicate the refusal of US President Joe Biden to take back his words, which implicitly indicates his surrender. In addition, according to him, "only Putin knows the date of the start of the special operation."
Unpopular story: Has Russian intelligence surpassed American intelligence?
The US Intelligence Community is a group of the world's largest agencies responsible for intelligence gathering. It consists of 18 separate U.S. government agencies with more than 200,000 employees and a budget of $85.8 billion. It also has noticeable stains on its reputation that arose after the Second World War. We are talking about plans to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba in 1961.
Especially striking were the intelligence failures when Communist forces in North Vietnam took the United States by surprise by launching a major and coordinated attack on South Vietnam in 1968, as well as when the Iranian revolution broke out in 1979 and the American embassy was seized. It is impossible not to recall the inability to foresee the appearance of the USSR in Afghanistan in 1979, the nuclear tests in India in 1998 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Finally, the intelligence work before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when unreliable information was made public, which served as a pretext for starting a war, can be considered a failure.
A recent blunder of American intelligence was the inability of the CIA to calculate how quickly the armed forces of Afghanistan will be defeated in August 2021. The culmination after the external failures was a wave of internal criticism of the department after Edward Snowden published information in 2013, testifying to the espionage of American intelligence against its citizens.
On the other hand, Russian intelligence was actively working, paving the way for the implementation of the Kremlin's policy on the world stage. Earlier, The New York Times published a message from the American intelligence service, which indicates the inability of agents to successfully work in countries hostile to the United States, such as Russia and China, which is why it is not possible to find out about Putin's plans.
In addition, the letter was intended to alert all CIA headquarters and bases around the world about the alarming increase in the number of arrested, killed or recruited agents from the United States.
So, in recent years, the intelligence services of such hostile states as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan have begun active work on surveillance of CIA informants, and in some cases they managed to recruit them as double agents.
As recognized by the American intelligence service, the recruitment of agents has turned into a risky business, and the work of intelligence itself has become seriously complicated due to many problems, including ineffective espionage methods, excessive reliance on the role of informants, belittling the importance of foreign intelligence services and hasty recruitment of informants without paying due attention to potential risks from hostile intelligence services. Putin has repeatedly boasted about the campaign to "eliminate" US intelligence agents, such as during a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights in Russia last year.
According to the report of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service for 2022, which provided detailed information about the work of Russian special services and the threat to the West emanating from Moscow and Beijing, Russian intelligence agents are superior to their counterparts in other countries. In particular, they are not content with collecting military information, considering equally important information in the field of economics, politics, technology and ecology in the target areas.
As the authors emphasize, the main task of the activities of Russian intelligence officers is to prepare and support Russian military operations abroad using operational and tactical information collected about the target country. Thanks to the information received about the situation and the deployment of the armed forces, a picture emerges about the target countries, especially those related to NATO.
