“The concept of plausible denial had an undeniable flavor of wishful thinking about it”, wrote CIA veteran William Hood in his book on Soviet military intelligence (GRU)[1] officer and CIA spy, Pyotr S. Popov. Hood might just as well have been commenting on the risk calculus of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he authorized (as he surely must have) the March 2018 attempt to kill GRU defector Sergei Skripal. If Putin truly believed the Russian role in the operation could be deniable, he ignored the lessons of history.
As I noted in a previous Cipher Brief article on the 2006 London murder of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) defector Aleksandr Litvinienko (“The Tsar Knew”), Soviet and Russian intelligence services have a long history of engaging in assassination operations against those regarded as traitors to the state. Some of those operations succeeded in killing the target, most spectacular among them the 1940 killing of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City and the 1937 shooting of rogue Soviet Illegal Ignace Reiss on a Swiss street. However, even successful intelligence operations almost invariably don’t go wholly according to plan. Further, as evidenced by the 2010 assassination of a Palestinian extremist in Dubai, killing a person without leaving a trail investigators can follow is no mean task. Ramon Mercader, the ice axe-wielding Spanish communist who killed Trotsky, was arrested and imprisoned, while the Soviet team that machine-gunned Reiss precipitously fled Lausanne after the act, leaving a box of chocolates laced with strychnine behind in their hotel room. Litvinienko’s killers also left a trail of the substance used to kill him; polonium, behind, for British investigators to follow. While all of those assassinations were rightly ascribed to Moscow, they did, at least, eliminate their targets.
Mark Kelton, Fmr. Dep. Director Counterintelligence, CIA's National Clandestine Service
"In contrast, the GRU team dispatched to assassinate Skripal not only failed in their mission in that the target and his daughter survived while an investigating police officer was sickened by traces of the Novichok nerve agent used the attack. They also made significant operational mistakes."
Apart from using what may be aliases to travel to Britain, “Alexander Petrov” and “Ruslan Boshirov” evidenced little or no attention to the basic precepts of intelligence tradecraft. They seemed oblivious to the presence of surveillance cameras that are ubiquitous throughout Britain. On Russian television, the pair deployed a laughable cover story, saying they visited the “wonderful” city of Salisbury to see its lovely Cathedral spire and 14th century clock tower. Claiming to be sports nutritionists, they did not elaborate on why they went to Salisbury on two consecutive days before promptly returning to Moscow - beyond a preposterous assertion that they were in quest of new nutrition products. Nor did they explain how Novichok residue found its way into their hotel room. Such basic tradecraft failings made it impossible for the Kremlin to plausibly deny its role in the attack.
The decision to employ GRU for the operation bears further consideration. Putin’s intelligence background likely left him with a jaundiced view of the professionalism of the KGB’s military intelligence rivals. In contrast to the general preference of its KGB, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and FSB counterparts are more generally used for measured and non-attributable operations, while the GRU was - and is - known for carrying out intelligence operations with kinetic aggressiveness and with little regard for the subtleties of tradecraft. GRU success in the conduct of “Hybrid” warfare and in influence operations associated with the 2016 U.S. elections notwithstanding, such incidents as exposure of a GRU hand in the 2014 abortive coup in Montenegro and reported GRU involvement with the shoot-down that same year of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine,[2] would surely have reminded Putin that little had changed since his KGB days with regard to the relatively low quality of the operational tradecraft employed by the ‘distant neighbors’.[3]
Seen in that context, it is likely that deniability was not a determining factor in Putin’s decision to task the GRU to go after Skripal. As such, one reason Putin may have opted for the GRU was because it, as a military organization, has a propensity for aggressive action, often emphasizing getting the job done over adherence to the dictates of tradecraft. In addition, as Skripal was a GRU officer, Putin probably saw that organization as responsible for punishing him. Finally, there is the issue of pure vengeance. Although tales that famed Cold War spy GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy being placed into a crematorium alive, are almost certainly false[4], the GRU does has a reputation for dealing harshly with traitors.
Mark Kelton, Fmr. Dep. Director, Counterintelligence, CIA's National Clandestine Service
"We don’t know what triggered the decision to target Skripal. Some press reports have cited his assistance to Western intelligence services in their work against Russia as the reason Moscow struck at the defector.[5] While that may have been the triggering event for going after him, Putin’s oft-stated views on those he sees as traitors almost certainly precipitated the attack."
“Traitors”, the Kremlin leader said in the wake of what must have been a humiliating 2010 swap of four Russians jailed for spying for the West in exchange for 10 Russian intelligence illegals arrested by the U.S., “will kick the bucket”.[6] One of the four sent West was Skripal. Moscow’s decision to try to kill him, despite his having been pardoned by the Russian government, was surely intended to send a message that Moscow’s reach is long and that there is no statute of limitations for treason. In that sense, the operation succeeded.
While Putin may have hoped the GRU would carry out the operation in a manner that gave him some deniability, his reaction to its exposure tells us he was not overly concerned that they did not. The smirk Putin evinced while mouthing a preposterous description of the team dispatched to kill Skripal as “ordinary civilians”[7] belied his absolute contempt for his Western adversaries. Measures taken by the West to date - to include imposition of sanctions and expulsions of Russian intelligence officers from western countries – have not, and almost certainly will not, suffice to discourage Putin from continuing to use his intelligence services with impunity against the West, to include influence operations and the murder of those considered traitors. As I concluded in a previous Cipher Brief piece (“Don’t be Fooled by New Casks for Putin’s Old Snake Oil”), the best way for the West to dissuade Putin from such actions is to respond in kind to his attacks on Western democracy; forcing him onto the strategic defensive by fostering democratic opposition inside Russia, thus putting that which Putin values most – his hold on power – at risk. Anything short of that is a denial of reality.
And don’t miss a British perspective on the Skripal attack by Cipher Brief Expert and Former Senior Member of the British Foreign Office Nick Fishwick here…
[1] The Main Intelligence Directorate, shortened to GRU from the Russian. The name of the GRU was changed to the Main Directorate (GU) in 2010, but the organization is essentially the same as that which served both the Soviet and Russian states and remains widely known by its original GRU moniker.
[2] Leonid Bershidsky, “Putin’s Spies Can’t Even Get Along With Each Other”, Bloomberg, 17 July 2018.
[3] This label for the GRU dates back to the Soviet era when the KGB; headquartered in the Lubyanka near the Soviet Foreign Ministry (MFA) in central Moscow; was referred to as the “near neighbors”, while the GRU; with its offices much further away; was known as the “distant neighbors.
[4] GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy volunteered to spy for the West in 1960 and was run jointly by the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service until his arrest in 1962. Penkovskiy was convicted of espionage, sentenced to death and, the cremation story notwithstanding, almost certainly shot.
[5] John Fitsanakis, “Poisoned Russian Spy Advised Spanish Intelligence”, IntelNews.org, 07 September2018.
[6] Alexandra Ma, “’Traitors will Kick the Bucket’ – Vladimir Putin’s Chilling Warning to Spies Who Betray Russia”, Business Insider, 07 March 2018.
[7] Amie Farris-Rotman, “Putin: Poison Suspects Are ‘Ordinary Civilians’, The Washington Post, 13 September 2018, p A11.
