EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — In January of 2018, I was involved in organizing and supporting the visit of General Aleksandr Bortnikov, and Sergey Naryshkin, the heads of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), respectively, to Washington D.C. to discuss counterterrorism cooperation.
Interestingly, Bortnikov and Naryshkin did not travel at the same time, indicating to me that there was no love lost between the two. The SVR delegation arrived first, spent one day meeting with the leadership teams of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), then departed the next day before Bortnikov and his delegation arrived. Contrary to the wild claims made by some U.S. politicians and journalists after the visit, the head of the Russian Main Directorate of Intelligence (GRU) of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) did not travel to the U.S. in January of 2018, and the SVR and FSB delegations did not have any other official or unofficial meetings with U.S. officials. Also, the visits were fully coordinated within the U.S. Government’s Interagency.
Because these visits were part of the U.S. Administration’s “Intelligence Diplomacy” efforts, the U.S. and Russian sides both agreed that there would be no public or official statements about the meetings, nor would there be any organized media coverage of the visits.
After meetings with the DNI and CIA, Naryshkin had dinner plans with the then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov. And on the day of his departure from the U.S., Naryshkin advised a representative of the U.S. side supporting the visit that he and Antonov chose to have dinner at a quiet restaurant in Georgetown and that while dining together, a Russian journalist “happened” to be in the same restaurant at the same time, saw Naryshkin, and would “probably write a story” about his visit.
In delivering this news, Naryshkin claimed that he had no control over what the journalist would say or write and, sure enough, soon after his plane departed, there were media reports circulating in the U.S. about Naryshkin’s visit. The initial story came from a source in the Russian media, and was picked up by multiple U.S. and International media outlets. But the reporting included false claims, like “Naryshkin and Bortnikov were joined in the U.S. by the head of the GRU General Igor Korobov." Some reporting implied that the visits were not coordinated within the U.S. Government and suggested that it was possible that the Russians had also met with officials from the White House and the National Security Council (NSC) — all insinuations that were meant to undermine the U.S. President at the time.
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Of course, the SVR was aware of the deep political sensitivities in the U.S. related to all-things Russia at the time and they knew that Trump himself was still dealing with the fallout of the “Russia Collusion” narrative that had been created and promoted by political opponents during the 2016 Presidential election. Naryshkin used the opportunity presented by his visit to “leak” information about the visit itself and to exploit existing domestic problems in the U.S., knowing that would further inflame suspicions about the U.S. President and undermine both the President and confidence in the U.S. system. There is no doubt that Naryshkin’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of this information operation in advance and authorized it.
I refer to this action by the Kremlin as an “information operation” because to my knowledge, the SVR did not disseminate any false or distorted information directly when Naryshkin leaked news of his visit. However, it is very possible that this was part of what the Russians called an “operational combination” in which additional aspects of SVR operations could have involved seeding false information using clandestine sources in the U.S. media space - to amplify the narrative.
For example, it is possible that the Russians would used their sources to pass information to U.S. or Western journalists that led to a lot of the false claims about the GRU Director’s presence in the U.S. at the time and allegations of a "secret meeting" between the U.S. President and Russian Intelligence officials. Of course, it is also possible that the Russians did not have to seed this type of information and instead, simply benefited from the fact that Trump’s opponents were looking to seize on any tidbit of information to attack the President and were not beyond distorting facts or promoting falsehoods to advance their own political agendas.
Information Operations are designed to play on the emotions, fears, prejudices and pre-existing beliefs of their target audiences. They are much more successful when target audiences do not apply critical thinking skills and approach receiving information with a level of objective discipline.
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In the case cited above, the Russians most likely assessed that “leaking” news of the visit of their Intelligence officials to the U.S. would play to the fears and political biases of certain portions of the U.S. audience and result in an emotional or politically charged response.
Unfortunately, the Russians likely got a great deal of benefit from a small investment of effort because elements of their target audience overreacted, giving the operation greater impact than it would have had if some targets of the effort had simply responded objectively, asked good questions about the news and purpose of the visit and taken the time to understand that the visit had been pre-cleared and coordinated within the U.S. Government “Interagency” system and was not unlike other visits by Russian Intelligence and Security officials to the U.S. during previous presidencies.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author's views.
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