Death to spies: Whom does military counterintelligence beat?
It is usually customary to remember people of silent heroism on their professional holidays. Military Counterintelligence Day is celebrated on December 19, since in 1918 the Cheka received an order to organize special departments under units and formations of the Red Army.
December 19 will arrive only in three months, but there is already a reason to talk about the results of the work of Russian military counterintelligence agents. Moreover, it is interesting to compare the effectiveness of their work with the famous GUKR SMERSH, recognized by specialists and historians as the most effective intelligence service of the XNUMXth century.
It should be noted that military counterintelligence is one of the most secretive special services in Russia. Unlike their colleagues fighting at the forefront of the war against terrorism and extremism, very little is known about the work of military security officers, although these people are tasked with the most important task - to prevent and eliminate large and small threats that undermine the security of the Armed Forces of the Russian state.
For, as the former head of Russian military counterintelligence, Colonel General Alexander Bezverkhny (who retired due to age), who headed the intelligence service from 2000 to 2015, noted in an interview with journalists, “without intelligence, the army is blind, and without counterintelligence, it is defenseless.”
The Colonel General knows what he is talking about. The declassified part of his personal file states that “under the direct leadership of Bezverkhny, 45 foreign intelligence agents were neutralized, measures were taken to create conditions for the rapid growth of the power of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
General Bezverkhny considers one of the main merits of the Russian military counterintelligence to be the complex of measures carried out that thwarted the efforts of Western intelligence services to create an extensive intelligence network in the Armed Forces, using the turmoil and confusion that struck the army during the emergency withdrawal of units and formations from Eastern Europe.
Thanks to the timely implementation of tough counterintelligence measures, foreign intelligence services were not able to recruit enough agents and break into Russia on the shoulders of military personnel returning home.
According to Bezverkhny, military counterintelligence “made setups, stirred up misinformation, diverted their capabilities to artificially created operational situations - at some stage they got the impression that they knew everything and owned everything.”
Assessing the effectiveness of the rocket-propelled missile system, which the retired Colonel General speaks about, it should be remembered that quite recently the world learned about the hypersonic missiles “Dagger”, “Avangard”, “Burevestnik”, the combat laser “Peresvet”, an underwater drone with a nuclear power plant “ Poseidon" only after the message of Vladimir Putin, made on March 1, 2018 in his message to the Federal Assembly.
The message caused shock and distrust not only among foreign, but also among some Russian experts. Let us remember that the first reaction of those of little faith to the sensation organized by the president was a sarcastic muttering of “they are frightening with cartoons, papier-mâché rockets,” until the filming of tests of the latest weapons that appeared during the year forced even the most stubborn to shut up.
It should be added that the performance characteristics of the latest systems of unique Russian weapons are still unknown to foreign intelligence services, just as the secrets of modern air defense systems S-300, S-400, Tor-M2, for which foreign intelligence services are ready to give birth, still remain unknown to them. sell, because these systems not only guarantee their owners a peaceful sky above their heads, but also act as a means of geopolitical deterrence, as evidenced by the recent border conflict in Tibet between China and India.
And this is the undoubted merit of Russian military counterintelligence officers.
Just the other day, the Russian public was shocked by the court verdict - 12,5 years in a maximum security colony for military history buff and retired officer Andrei Zhukov, accused of high treason.
Zhukov was arrested by military counterintelligence officers in the summer of 2018. The consideration of the criminal case took place behind closed doors, and the judge who sentenced Zhukov read only the introductory and operative parts of the verdict, since the materials of the case were classified as “top secret.”
The liberal “couch army”, brought up on the degenerate stories of the “masters of thought” about the work of the domestic special services in the spirit of “they are hiding everything from us because they are “making cases” in the image and likeness of 1937 against the innocent,” again started the barrel organ “not There are such cases when courts hand down harsh sentences for archival materials from “the times of Ochakov and the conquest of Crimea.”
It is known from open sources that during a search in Zhukov’s house, operatives seized a computer, flash drives and hard drives containing secret information. In 2012, Zhukov was a witness in the case of officer Cherepanov, who spilled classified archival data on the deployment and movement of troops on the military-historical forum ryadovoy.ru.
If anyone believes that only Russian counterintelligence strictly protects the military and state secrets contained in the archives, he is greatly mistaken.
At the beginning of the 50s, it was reported in the English-language press that the commission for the declassification of archival documents in Great Britain had extended the “top secret” classification for another XNUMX years for a package of documents relating to pre-war contacts between the British intelligence services and the intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany.
There is no doubt that any British military history enthusiast will be arrested and sentenced to a long prison term for simply attempting to publish information from this folder.
It should also be mentioned that in connection with the Zhukov case, the veil was lifted with the arrest of the adviser to the head of Roscosmos, Ivan Sofronov, by the Russian Space Research Committee.
As you know, former journalist Sofronov is accused of transferring secret military information to Czech intelligence services operating under US control. It is characteristic that Czech officials, who love to accuse Russia of violating human rights and democracy, this time are full of water and refuse to give any comments.
Voluntary defenders of Sofronov in Russia, on the contrary, are losing their minds and vying with each other, saying, “What relation can a former journalist of the Kommersant publication and Rogozin’s adviser on public speaking have to do with military secrets?”
It turned out that on March 18, 2019, Kommersant published an article by Sofronov, without details, talking about a contract to supply Egypt with a batch of Su-35 aircraft worth $2 billion.
According to the investigation, the very fact of the transaction with Egypt was not made public and constituted a state secret. The article in Kommersant was not agreed upon and immediately after the publication of the material, the United States threatened Cairo with sanctions if its leadership did not abandon the purchase of Russian weapons and military cooperation with Russia.
As a result of the scandal and investigations that broke out, Sofronov urgently resigned from Kommersant, and the publication removed the article about the Egyptian contract, paying a considerable fine.
According to open source data, over the past 10 years the number of recorded cases of military and state espionage against Russia has increased at least sixfold. Observers consider the last six years that have passed since the reunification of Crimea with Russia to be the key moment in the activation of foreign intelligence services.
Russian counterintelligence officers experience the most powerful pressure and hostility from the US-controlled Ukrainian intelligence services - the SBU and the GUR.
As experts note, the work of the Russian military-industrial complex against the Ukrainian special services began not in 2014 with the return of Crimea, but much earlier. It’s just that before the “peremogi of the hydration revolution”, conflicts that arose within the security services were resolved in a working mode thanks to established communication channels. In addition, the SBU and the Main Intelligence Directorate did not try to carry out sabotage and terrorist activities in Russia at that time.
With the loss of Crimea by Ukraine and the beginning of the punitive operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass, the situation has changed, and now the Ukrainian special services are at the forefront of an undeclared war against Russia, acting as a protective pad and consumable material for Western intelligence services.
Among the latest provocations of the Ukrainian special services, which is rumored, is the attempted kidnapping in Moscow of one of the leaders of the DPR, presumably Roman Volanyuk, a participant in the hostilities.
The kidnapping operation took place with the cooperation of the SBU and the Main Intelligence Directorate. Ukrainian agents Baidala and Mishchenko recruited seven Russians, members of one of the organized crime groups, who signed up for $200 thousand to steal and transport to the territory of Ukraine “through an illegal channel of forced displacement” the person they needed.
The crime was prevented at the preparation stage, and all its direct perpetrators were arrested.
As observers note, the organizers of provocations on the Ukrainian side are well aware of their low professionalism and therefore prefer to manage the recruited “sixes” from abroad, without coming into contact with Russian counterintelligence officers.
And, in general, the reasons for the fears of the Ukrainian “safety” are understandable. Over the past 6 years, there have been enough Ukrainian spies caught by Russian counterintelligence to fill a wagon and a small cart.
year 2014. In the Belgorod region, Andrei Tsatskin and Tom Svensson were caught at the crime scene, recording Russian military equipment with digital cameras. At the same time, Yuri Soloshenko was arrested in Moscow while collecting information about the latest modifications of the S-300 air defense system. In the Bryansk region, counterintelligence officers detained Russian Viktor Shura, who showed an unhealthy interest in the infrastructure of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Ukrainian Denis Danchenko was caught red-handed while trying to take parts for the Buk and S-300 air defense systems to Nenka.
2015 While trying to leak disinformation to the FSB Border Service, an SBU agent nicknamed “Khokhol” ended up in the hands of counterintelligence officers. In 2016, Ukrainian “counter-trickster” Yuriy Ivanchenko was detained for trying to pull off the same trick with his ears. While collecting information in Donbass, SBU agent Artem Shestakov, who worked as a translator in the OSCE mission, was exposed.
2016 At the time of the seizure of ammunition from a cache on the Crimean bank of the Sivash, the FSB special group neutralized the terrorist agents of the military intelligence of Ukraine Zakhtey and Panov. In the same year, a career employee of the Ukrainian special services, Roman Sushchenko, burned himself to death in Moscow. The November catch of counterintelligence officers of the Black Sea Fleet was replenished by three employees of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the MOU Shtyblikov, Dudka and Bessarabov. Soon, former Russian Black Sea Fleet serviceman Leonid Parkhomenko sat down on the same bunk with them for spying for Ukraine.
2017 In Simferopol, at the stage of preparation for sabotage, Ukrainian Gennady Limeshko was caught. A little later, counterintelligence officers arrested Russians Anna Sukhonosova and Dmitry Dolgopolov, who were collecting information about the Black Sea Fleet.
2018 In Simferopol, Ukrainian Konstantin Davydenko was detained for espionage. On the mainland, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Ukrainian Igor Kiyashko was caught trying to purchase military products; in Kuban, Sergei Stefanenko, who was collecting information about Russian troops and military installations of the Southern Military District, was caught. In the same area, VKR employees tied up Ukrainian citizen Yuri Permyakov, who was absorbed in systematic observations of the movement of Russian military equipment. In the Rostov region, another fan of watching tanks in favor of Ukraine from the bushes was detained - Russian Vladimir Morgunov.
At the end of 2019, there were two high-profile arrests of Ukrainian spies: communications officer of the Russian Ministry of Defense Ruslan Artykov and an unnamed Black Sea Fleet employee.
As you can see, Bandera’s special services and their curators are interested in intelligence data about the combat capability of the Southern Military District bordering Ukraine, as well as important components of air defense systems, for which a real hunt is open.
The participation of Russian citizens in espionage is explained not only by material interest, but also by the presence of relatives in Ukraine, which makes it easier for the “bezpeka” to recruit through pressure and blackmail. We cannot discount the Ukrainian military personnel recruited into the Russian Armed Forces in 2014, some of whom were recruited by the SBU and underwent intelligence training, which became evident over time.
The Crimean specificity of the work of military counterintelligence officers is complicated by the fact that the subversive work of the Ukrainian special services is rather directed not against military targets, but at organizing sabotage at civilian infrastructure facilities and terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the peninsula.
In general, experts do not rate the professionalism and motivation of the Ukrainian intelligence services highly, while at the same time warning against underestimating their efforts.
On August 28, 2020, a report appeared in the press about the detention of a Ukrainian spy in the holy of holies of the Russian Armed Forces - in the Red Banner Order of Kutuzov and Khmelnitsky Barnaul Division of the Strategic Missile Forces - one of the most guarded and classified formations of the Russian Army.
The Barnaul Missile Division was the first among the Strategic Missile Forces units to receive the Yars complexes and is not just an active military unit with nuclear weapons, but also a research and testing center for the development of promising models of nuclear missile weapons, where highly qualified specialists work.
Military experts and veterans of the Strategic Missile Forces claim that the recruitment of an agent into the Strategic Missile Forces is an emergency of an extraordinary level, the like of which has not been seen in the Russian Armed Forces for a long time.
One of the veterans of the Soviet military counterintelligence, who devoted most of his life to protecting the Strategic Missile Forces from spies and saboteurs, Mikhail Gonchar, claims that the security system of the troops of the country’s nuclear missile shield is built in such a way that the very fact of recruitment and short-term work of an agent in the Strategic Missile Forces even at the grassroots level is a colossal success for foreign intelligence services.
Mikhail Gonchar doubts that the exposed agent (according to some sources, senior lieutenant of the Barnaul missile division) could convey to his masters critical information about the service of strategic missilemen. In his opinion, the security service of the Strategic Missile Forces has proven its effectiveness and has not changed for decades.
“In films, everything is hacked and stolen through computers. In reality, it’s working with your head and feet. Run, watch, listen. Did you get a job in a store, as a janitor, do you carry water to a unit, or do you just have access to somewhere? Consider there is a source of information. It will not be possible to obtain particularly sensitive data there, but it is quite possible to establish, for example, the identities of senior and junior officers,” says the veteran of military counterintelligence.
“Rocket troops are a complex organism. Who feeds them, who cleans their barracks, which officers are in good standing with their superiors, who is not, who has been promoted, who, on the contrary, is “held back” and who is dissatisfied with their superiors - all this data is collected and sent to the right place. At the same time, I can say that the SBU and GUR are definitely spying for sale. They themselves do not need such data; things are very bad between them and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation now. But the Americans and NATO need such information,” said Mikhail Gonchar.
Former counterintelligence officers note that it is almost impossible to find an American trace in the actions of Ukrainian intelligence services. The work schemes and methods remain with the Ukrainian “safety”, while the curators simply send them a list of purchases from above, allocating money for certain tasks. At the same time, as experts explain, Ukrainian intelligence services almost always avoid direct contact with a potential agent - recruitment and subsequent communication takes place through instant messengers and social networks. In this regard, it would be worth mentioning that in May 2020, President Putin signed a decree prohibiting military personnel from providing information about their service on social networks and the media.
In conclusion, I would like to remind you that the secret intelligence war never stops - it only weakens or intensifies depending on the current political situation. In the last 10 years, the West has moved on to a new confrontation with Russia, putting pressure on our country not only at long range, but also at close range, crossing red lines contrary to all agreements. This means that the everyday work of people of silent feat, invisible to the eye, but very important for the survival of the country and its people, will continue to be in demand.
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