“Since March 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots,” said the head of Britain’s intelligence and counter-terrorism service, MI5. Speaking at a meeting in London, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said: “Some of those plotters were trying to get hold of firearms and explosives, in the final days of planning mass murder. Our vital work together has saved numerous lives.” It’s reassuring to know that the murderous plots were thwarted but also worrying that they existed at all. But they do, and they are on the increase. It’s no means all about Russia, either. McCallum said that his agents, together with the police, have dealt with twenty “potentially lethal” plots backed by Iran 2022 and he’s worried that Iran’s range of targets could expand if middle eastern conflicts worsen. He’s concerned that Israel’s on-going conflicts with groups that have Iran’s backing, such as militant Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthi rebels could lead to an increase in attacks in Britain. McCallum told his audience that the number of state-threat investigations by MI5 has increased by 48% over the last year, with Iran, Russia and China being chiefly responsible. With so many different parties involved, dealing with the threat has become far more complicated than it used to be.
Russia, of course, still seems to have ambitions to rule the world and hostile activities by its numerous agents seem to be one of Moscow’s chosen means, using such methods as arson, sabotage and other such means, so people in the UK have good reasons to be grateful to MI5. After all, if Putin “ruled the world”, recalling that song from the musical, “Pickwick”, Everyday would not be the “first day of spring”; it would be more likely to be the first day of a nuclear winter. McCallum told his audience that when it comes to acts of terrorism, 75% of the work today involved Islamist extremists, with the other 25% being plotted by far-right groups. You may think it’s because of the terrorists’ devotion to their cause, but McCallum said that many of them don’t understand their own leaders’ points of view. “We’re encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow.” Most of the terrorist groups have little or no connection with each other, said McCallum, which makes it harder to track them down. Meanwhile, the various terrorist groups and their generally violent but ill-informed followers seek to capitalise on areas of global conflict, convinced that whatever cause is being fought over will help to justify their own murderous intentions.
Since Russia mounted its illegal invasion of Ukraine, more than 750 Russia diplomats have been expelled from Europe. European authorities have also been refusing diplomatic visas to those known to have connections with that country’s secret service, which has, according to McCallum, led to Russia using proxies from private intelligence operatives and criminals to conduct their espionage work.
As a result, it has become less professional. Additionally, there has been a sharp increase in Iranian involvement in terrorism and spying activities. McCallum had a warning for those attracted to serving Iran or Russia: “If you take money from Iran, Russia or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.”
| WATCHING THE WATCHERS
Spying is nothing new. The ancient Egyptians employed secret agents as part of their rivalry and mutual struggle with Greece and Rome. They developed codes in which to conceal their messages, along with places to hide those messages at home or about their person. That way, it was very hard for those seeking to intercept such communications to find the hidden messages and even harder to understand what they were saying if they found any. It was always a dirty business, and it still is, although it holds a certain bleak fascination for those of us not involved in the dirty world of espionage. There have been quite a few spies in fiction, with by far the most famous (at least in the West) having been James Bond, of course. Strangely, the others, however successful the books about their activities proved, are less well remembered. It’s probably all part of the art of staying under cover, as practised by spies down the ages. Even some of the most successful fictional spies are not well-known. Len Deighton’s book about spies and spying, “The Ipcress File”, doesn’t name the heroic protagonist at all. Now, with all the tensions in the world, espionage is coming back into the limelight, even if it is mostly kept hidden and out of sight.
Now we come to Europe’s deep concern about the “шпион”, which is Russian for spy (and is pronounced “shpion”, I believe, with the plural, “шпионы”, pronounced “shpionen”). Like every nation, of course, Russia has used spies – secret agents – for centuries and is still doing so. The activity is often portrayed in fiction as a rather romantic, exciting sort of occupation, sometimes conducted in nightclubs and bars, in the company of exotic and provocatively dressed members of the opposite gender. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is a false impression. Very false indeed. It’s still a job that people do, presumably willingly, if not under duress.
According to the Financial Times (FT), talking about that former spying capital of Europe, Vienna, “There are still more than 180 accredited Russian diplomats in Vienna, and at least a third of them are known to be using diplomatic cover for intelligence-gathering activities.” That certainly gives one food for thought. “Many more are now operating in the country illegally thanks to its lax policing and surveillance of espionage,” says the FT. Fears about Russia’s secret intelligence gathering operations in Europe are growing, and it’s no longer a concern about the growth of Communism, of course. Nobody could seriously describe President Vladimir Putin as a Communist, but then again, he’s not a diplomat either, nor much of a politician. Now the spying is being done, it seems, purely for money, and there is apparently quite a lot of it happening.
Of course, Russia is not the only country interested in espionage. It’s probably true to say that every country in the world shares that interest, to a lesser or greater degree. It’s not so long since German authorities arrested a Chinese national who had been working for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, securing information on the transportation of military equipment and of people linked to Germany’s arms industry. She was accused of sharing this information with a far-right German member of the European Parliament who had already been accused of spying for China. She and the MEP were accused of passing on information concerning negotiations and decisions involving the European Parliament, while monitoring Brussels and Strasbourg about the activities of Chinese dissidents. The MEP accused of involvement has denied all knowledge of any spying within his parliamentary office, of course. McCallum drew attention to MI5’s operations against Russian aggression: “Earlier this year, the last remaining Russian military intelligence officer was expelled from the UK, and diplomatic accreditation removed from a number of sites. We’ll keep bearing down.”
Spying for China is one thing, but European authorities are more disturbed by alleged incidents of spying for Russia. McCallum drew his audience’s attention to Britain’s economic relationship with China, which leaves MI5 concentrating on co-operation and the disruption of any attempts to harming or coercing people of Chinese heritage. Back in the summer, German state police arrested three people in Frankfurt who, it was claimed, were on Moscow’s spying payroll.
The three came from Ukraine, Armenia and, of course, Russia. It was alleged by the German Federal Prosecutor’s office that the trio had travelled to Germany on behalf of a “foreign secret service” (for which, read “Russia”, of course) in order to garner data on a Ukrainian citizen staying there. The three were arrested in Frankfurt, the financial hub of Germany, by Hesse State Police. They were seized while investigating a café where their target was thought to have been seen (clearly not quite the sexy nightclub of the imagination). It was the latest in a series of arrests of alleged Russian and other foreign agents. Back in April 2024, two German-Russian citizens with dual nationality were seized for allegedly scouting out potential targets for sabotage. It’s not the first such incident: a high-ranking officer in Germany’s own secret service was still on trial at the of writing, charged with passing top-secret information to Russian spies. Those supposedly spying for China were said to have been gathering technical information about German military technology. In each case, German political figures were also implicated.
| WAR! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ASK PUTIN
Russia’s spying activities are being taken very seriously in the West. In September 2024, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, called together Russia experts from its various member states to assess the scale of the problem and to try to work out what to do about it. Chaired by Acting Deputy Secretary General, Bors Ruge, they agreed that Russia remains the “most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security”. Those taking part in the gathering pointed out that Russia seems determined to “fundamentally reconfigure the Euro-Atlantic security architecture” and they agreed that the threat Russia poses will persist in the long term. If you lived next door to Putin you would need to keep your curtains firmly closed. “NATO is the essential transatlantic forum for consultations on all matters related to our individual and collective security,” Ambassador Ruge told participants. “We will continue to consult on hostile Russian activities and co-ordinate national and allied responses.” Allies participating in the meeting expressed their deep concern over what they referred to as Russia’s “hybrid actions” which constitute a threat to allied security. Hybrid actions are those involving non-state actors (sometimes referred to, strangely, as “little green men”) to carry out military actions such as cyber-attacks, political assassinations, the spread of disinformation and so on in a clandestine way using completely deniable participants. It’s a dirty way to fight a war.
The meeting also discussed recent hostile acts by Russia, including sabotage, acts of violence, provocations at Allied borders and violations of Allied airspace, instrumentalization of irregular migration as well as malicious cyber activities and disinformation campaigns. However, the meeting restated the members’ determination to support Ukraine, regardless of President Putin’s hostility and threats. They also pointed out that the delivery by Iran of ballistic missiles to Russia represents a serious escalation in Tehran’s support for what they described as “Russia’s illegal war”. Iran’s action here clearly has nothing to do with religion. New sanctions were proposed, although I suspect that what Kiev would really like most is more weapons of its own to use against Russia’s unprovoked attacks and also against Russia itself.
Needless to say Putin is pulling no punches in his determination to create a full-scale war with the West. He has warned NATO alliance leaders that if the current restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range Western missiles were to be lifted he would consider it “an act of war” (as if his invasion of Ukraine was a friendly act). Judging by his rather strange announcements so far, it would seem that a full-scale war is exactly what Putin wants, although he may fear that the West will hold back from committing to such aggression in order to retain peace. The West clearly doesn’t want a full-scale war, but Putin, perhaps, does, for some reason. He has said that the missile issue, if his demands are not met, would mean that he would consider the United States and all of Europe to be legitimate targets for Russia’s military hardware. We don’t know if that could include the use of nuclear weapons, but Putin is not a man to hold back, and his threats seem real enough. Would he follow through with it? We cannot know, because playground bullies (and he certainly resembles one) tend to threaten but then shy away from engaging in the act itself unless no-one is watching.
He may feel justified in using nuclear weapons against Europe’s cities, docks and airfields, even if history never forgives him. Meanwhile, the chances of Europe allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike deep into Russia have been increasing, albeit slowly and cautiously. On a recent visit to Kyiv, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to suggest that the White House was seriously considering lifting the existing restrictions. However, we mustn’t forget America’s looming presidential election, which could see everything change.
Russia, too, seems concerned to combat spying. Six British diplomats recently had their accreditations revoked by the FSB, Russia’s security service, for allegedly spying on Russia, although no evidence was offered. Britain described the allegations as “completely baseless”, but that happens every time any country makes such an allegation.
Russia has been accused of getting its secret service agents involved in Britain’s departure from the EU, stationing them in Ireland with the express aim of undermining relations between London, Dublin and Brussels. Putin has always disliked the EU. Ireland’s own intelligence services were said to have been monitoring the activities of a senior Irish politician who met with a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer not far from Dublin. The politician in question is said to have promised to do “whatever he could to assist” the spy, whilst simultaneously establishing relations between Moscow and the paramilitaries of Northern Ireland during a delicate stage of the Brexit talks, despite him having no obvious ideological links to such groups. The current Irish Taoiseach, Simon Harris, has refused to reveal the politician’s name, but Russia has an unusually large embassy in Dublin. Harris didn’t deny the Russian espionage link, saying to the press: “It shouldn’t come as any surprise to any of us.”
Harris also confided that Russian intelligence activities had been increased since the invasion of Ukraine began. At the time, Ireland expelled four Russian diplomats who had been accused of recruiting moles from within Ireland’s political and business communities. Russia retaliated by banning large numbers of Irish politicians from travelling to Russia, a move that caused much laughter in Dublin’s corridors of power, which may have surprised and disappointed Putin. No Irish politicians or business people wanted to go there anyway, it seems.
“Russia seeks to distort public opinion,” Harris told the publication POLITICO, “and is active in relation to that across the world. Ireland is not immune from that.” Several people were accused of being members of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, and actively engaged in espionage, including the Russian agent Prokopiev, who is said to have recruited the Irish politician. He was one of four Russian embassy staff expelled from Ireland in 2022, although POLITICO alleges that Prokopiev continued to communicate with and seek to influence the politician involved by means of a female agent sent occasionally to Dublin as part of a “honeytrap” operation. POLITICO has said that the anonymous politician sits on the opposition benches, mainly occupied by left wing members, but it didn’t name him.
It also wrote that the MEP had defied police orders to end links with the Russians, saying he had been sought out and recruited to establish contacts with paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, especially with so-called “loyalist” extremists on the British Protestant side of Northern Ireland’s political battlefield.
Russia remains a factor in Irish politics, however peripherally. Prior to the Invasion of 2022, many on the left of Irish politics, such as members of Sinn Féin, had remained faithful to Moscow’s anti-Ukraine position. The invasion, when it came, changed that and the Irish Republican Party deleted from its on-line websites more than a decade of pro-Russia and anti-NATO messages. Even so, some left-wing Irish parliamentarians continue to accuse the EU and NATO of being overly aggressive towards Russia. And as we know, Russia is just a peace-loving country with no overseas ambitions at all, isn’t it?
| SECRETS FOR SALE?
Putin has questioned Ukraine’s ability to deliver long-range missiles to Russian targets without outside assistance, which is a sort of oblique threat to any country thinking of providing such assistance. He will doubtless be interested in the call from the US Congress to give Ukraine the go-ahead to attack targets in Russia. But of course, unlike Putin, Biden doesn’t want a war, and neither do most people in the West. It’s probably also true to say (although Putin may deny it) that most Russians don’t want a war either. Few sensible people do, but those with the ambition to broaden their horizons by pushing back frontiers see it as one way to achieve that end and take control of foreign countries.
It’s not just Russia, either, of course. In the spring of 2024, the Federal Prosecutor’s office in Germany announced the arrests of three suspected spies working for China’s secret intelligence service. It has led to the country’s research minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, calling for a review of collaborations by all of Germany’s universities with China and, of course, with Russia. Those who were arrested had been accused of procuring information on dual-use technologies on behalf of China’s secret service. They had apparently been in contact with several German universities and had even signed a contract with one of them. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) wants to see urgent moves to curb this misuse of trust by foreign entities, while its vice-president, Sinan Selen, has warned that his organisation will be paying closer attention to Chinese and other foreign activities connected with university spin-offs and start-ups.
According to Britain’s Financial Times, the sophistication of Bejing’s espionage operations is now on a par with Russia’s. Germany’s universities have long prided themselves on their willing cooperation in international research bodies. Worries have arisen, however, that their much-vaunted openness is not matched by their equivalents in other countries. Germany has, for instance, decided to reimpose border controls with neighbouring EU states, where previously the Schengen agreement offered border-free travel. Germany is keen to protect itself from irregular migration. That would seem to be a growing theme in Europe, which will delight Putin, of course. Indeed, the future of Schengen itself now seems in doubt. Not so many years ago, when I was living in Brussels and there was discussion about how to make Europe really open, it all looked relatively simple. Not any more, as Europe’s enemies abroad seek to capitalise on what could be seen as weaknesses in the EU’s basic premise.
Putin has made no secret of his own wish to see an end to the European Union. Freedoms such as those of choice, of the press, of cross-border movement and other matters apparently look threatening to Putin. On the other hand, renewed talk of the Korean War being resumed would appear to most people in the West as quite a threat, too, however far away. Conditions and a readiness for war would, according to some reports, seem closer to igniting a conflict there than at any time since the 1950s. And North Korean president Kim Jong Un has been talking about nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, including a build-up of solid-fuel ICBMs with miniaturised warheads and tactical nuclear weapons. Back in 1950, when what would become the European Union was first taking shape, Jean Monnet, the organisation’s great architect, was very worried about the effects of events in Korea. He feared it would lead to Germany thinking it could get what it wanted from the so-called Schuman Plan by some other route, making it irrelevant for the country.
That was why Monnet suggested a French initiative: the formation of a European army to solve Germany’s problem and allow the Schuman Plan negotiations to conclude successfully. Success only happened because of Monnet’s dogged determination, according to Dirk Spierenburg and Raymond Poidevin, both of whom were instrumental in making it all work. I spent a long time with both of these charming men as I worked with them on the English version of their excellent book, “The History of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community: Supranationality in Operation”.
The resulting coal and steel community would eventually evolve into the EU. It was one of the most enjoyable jobs I have undertaken, meeting regularly with the two men in a Brussels bar to discuss progress on the book. Spierenburg had been Director-General of Foreign Economic Relations in the Netherlands and represented the country throughout the negotiations for the so-called Schuman Plan. Poidevin, with a Doctorate from the Sorbonne, was Professor of History at the University of Strasbourg III and Director of the Centre des Recherches d’Histoire des Relations Internationales when I was working with him.
In Germany, the scientific community is – according to Germany’s “Research.Table”, a professional briefing from a large independent start-up for high-quality journalism in Germany – discussing how best to balance research cooperation with the stresses presented by political reality. The German University Association, for example, wants overarching standards to be developed in both science and the world of politics, agreeing that “qualified, cross-institutional information and counselling services are needed.” But still the spies are out there, hovering on the fringes, binoculars at the ready.
The science ministry has now published a position paper on research security, with the aim of developing a central “clearing station” to help academics to know and understand what they can say and to whom. After all, it’s not as if spies are always identifiable like those in cartoon strips. The EU would seem to be following suit, according to a fact sheet it published early in 2024, with a view to developing a “due diligence” tool based on the China Defence Universities Tracker created by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, establishing a European centre on research security. Of course, such a tactic would be a mode of defence against the Russian intelligence service, too. But for MI5, at least, China is far less of a threat that Putin’s Russia.
With such an open civilisation as we have in Europe enjoying its freedom of travel, you may find the idea of a looming clamp-down disturbing. If so, you have only to look at Moscow and Beijing (but especially Moscow) for the reasons. Both have been very actively engaged in trying to subvert the exchange of scientific and political information between friendly nations for their own advantage. If they were to succeed, then all the great benefits that the EU brought to its member states would be no more. And sadly, we no longer have people such as Dirk Spierenburg and Raymond Poidevin to put it right.
