CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – It’s often lost in all the news from the battlefield in Ukraine, and the various negotiations underway in pursuit of a peace deal: Who is winning the intelligence war in Ukraine? That question and others related to the way in which spycraft has impacted the conflict were the subject of a special session at the opening day of the Kyiv Security Forum Thursday.
The Forum brought past and present military, intelligence, and political leaders to the Ukrainian capital, for a series of sessions covering the state of the war and a way forward for Ukraine. This year’s theme was stark, and not subtle: “Unite Again to Defeat the Global Aggressor.”
The panel on the role of intelligence in the war featured five members of the Cipher Brief expert network: former Deputy Director for National Intelligence at ODNI Beth Sanner; former CIA Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia Ralph Goff; former chief of the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division Rob Dannenberg; former Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute; and Paul Kolbe, former head of the Intelligence Project at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Sanner served as moderator, for a conversation that covered the history of the Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services, the penetration the Ukrainians have made inside Russia, and lessons the U.S. and the West might draw from how the “intelligence war” in Ukraine has been fought.
Their comments have been edited for length and clarity.
THE EXPERTS
Sanner: The U.S. relationship with Ukraine really blossomed around intelligence. A decade ago, after the Crimea war in 2015, this is when the CIA really became involved. Paul, why has it been so central? And how do we look ahead from where we are today?
Kolbe: Ukrainian special services evolved from the same organization and same roots that the FSB and others evolved from. They were all part of the KGB under the Soviet Union. Similar doctrines, similar personnel, great friendships and relationships following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those two services took two very different paths, particularly under Putin, but even before that, we saw the security services in Russia fall back on their roots of oppression, of becoming primarily a domestic security organization focused on suppressing dissent, co-opting, suborning, kidnapping or jailing or killing opponents to the regime.
The security services of Russia have more resources focused on suppressing internal dissent and ensuring internal stability of the regime than they have focused on fighting Ukraine, right? So that tells you something. It tells you that the leaders of those services, and Putin in particular, there's a few things that they fear. They fear a free, prosperous democratic Ukraine. They fear the collective west, but what they fear most is their own people. So that's why they have their resources focused on that.
Ukraine took a very different path. It moved away from being focused on suppressing internal dissent to having security services that operate in a free and democratic society.
Sanner: Ralph, Ukraine has really had to emphasize this qualitative asymmetric advantage because they don't have advantage in quantity in order to prosecute this war. Are there any things that surprise you or stands out to you about Ukraine's approach to intelligence in wartime?
Goff: You look at their reach inside Russia. I think one of the most amazing things I've seen from the intelligence services of Ukraine in the past few years during this war is that they still operate inside Russia effectively. You look at the long-range attacks that are being launched, those are based on intelligence. You look at some of the assassinations that have taken place against valid military targets – that's based on intelligence, and that means that the Ukrainians have developed a capability to operate inside a police state, where President Putin has a 40,000-man National Guard force for his security. So that's an amazing turnaround for the service.
And [the Ukrainians] take it to the Russians wherever they find them. I don't know if anyone from here recalls a few months back, when a Russian paramilitary force in North Africa was wiped out by the Tuaregs. Now, I can't say with 100% certainty, but I have heard from some friends that the Ukrainian hand was involved in that as well. So I would have to say that this developing global reach of the services is probably the most effective surprise that I've seen from them.
Sanner: Rob, what are the lessons from Ukraine and what they're doing that we in the West, and our intelligence services can take away from them?
Dannenberg: There's nothing like a war to really force your thinking and force you to use your resources effectively. In some ways, what Ukraine has done, really starting with 2014, but especially since February 2022, is they've understood the nature of the threat in a way that I hope will be one of the lessons that Western intelligence services take from what's happened in the past three years.
We talk a lot about Ukrainian successes on the battlefield and elsewhere in this war technology development, but they had a counterintelligence problem that was a serious problem as well. And they managed to overcome that and still conduct these operations quite effectively, as Ralph pointed out, even on enemy territory. And so when I look at what the Ukrainians have done, I hope that part of the messaging that the U.S. intelligence and western intelligence services have picked up is the nature of the enemy and that the enemy is not invincible. The enemy can be addressed and defeated, and that should be part of the intelligence messaging that my current colleagues take to the leadership in the United States.
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Sanner: The United States intel community was way ahead of pretty much everyone else in calling the fact that this invasion was going to happen. But we also didn't do so well in figuring out that Russia's game plan wasn't going to go as envisioned. Doug, what is the lesson for all of us out of that?
Lute: I'm reminded of an old saying in military science, and that is that often quality beats quantity. Smaller, more capable forces are known in history to beat larger quantitative forces, those who have a numerical advantage. Russia has a larger military, it has a larger economy and so forth, but it doesn't have the quality that Ukraine has. The thing that gives me great hope is that Ukrainian quality will beat Russian quantity.
The Ukrainian intelligence services, the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian military forces reflect Ukrainian society in a way that gives them an asymmetric advantage. Because Putin's army reflects Russian society and it reflects its corruption – it's top-down, undisciplined and so forth. And on the Ukrainian side, you have innovation, adaptability, discipline, a national drive, a national spirit. Putin has none of that.
Goff: We got it right – that the Russians are coming, and they came. But you look at our gross overestimation of Russian capabilities, because our intelligence was based on lies. And the lesson for the West is, you need better humint. We were relying on cyber intelligence, signals intelligence, all these reports that our great cyber people were stealing, or sigints were stealing from the Russians. It was all lies. What we needed was one good human, a general or a colonel who could say, I haven't written an honest report in my entire career. And that's where we failed. We didn't have the human resources there. And I certainly hope that our Ukrainian colleagues are making up for that today.
Sanner: What are we learning about Russia's tactics now, both in Ukraine and in Europe, about how and why they're evolving – but also what's enduring in terms of their threat?
Kolbe: OK, but let's start with what was at the beginning of the war was a massive Russian intelligence failure. Totally. They believed that they were going to roll in, that the population was going to rise up and that it would be an easy road for them. They weren't able to execute their operational plans to decapitate the government.
How have they adapted to that? They've gone to a lowest-common-denominator approach of essentially cash-for-hire operations, using low-level commercial operatives hired from afar. Looks a little bit like ISIS recruiting over the internet.
So they've adopted a fast, iterative, unconventional approach. It's fast and loose. It doesn't go by any of the traditional rules of tradecraft and espionage, but in some cases it can be effective because it is so fast moving and it is so amorphous and it doesn't, collecting against it is difficult.
Goff: It's definitely more of a threat. And Vladimir Putin and his intelligence leadership, these are people who stick with what works. And what price has Putin paid? What price has Russia paid for these sabotage acts in NATO countries? None. How many anchors have to be accidentally dragged across internet infrastructure at the bottom of the Baltic? How many incendiary devices have to be put on civilian cargo planes? So the threat, it's going to increase, particularly once there's a ceasefire or some sort of armistice. It's not like they're going to turn that stuff off. In fact, the Russians will double down on it, right? Because it's cheap, it's effective, and they've never been punished for it. Those two things have to change.
Sanner: Doug, is the West prepared for dealing with these gray-zone issues? What do we need to do?
Lute: We're behind. And I absolutely agree that even in the face of the ceasefire, this is a tactic that Russia will continue to play over and over again until something's done about it. This highlights the importance of NATO and the EU working together, because much of the civilian infrastructure that's at risk here in the gray-zone attacks actually falls under not military authority, but civilian authority. And so it's very important that the 27 members of the EU, and now 32 of the NATO alliance, work together.
Dannenberg: There's strong arguments made in Washington these days about the China threat, about other threats, but really the linchpin in the coalition against Western values is led by Vladimir Putin. And I think part of the mistake that the Trump administration has made in approaching the Ukraine situation in general, Putin in particular, is that somehow they've been persuaded that the Ukraine is losing the war and that Putin is winning. And arguably more dangerously, that Putin is invincible, that he sits on top of now 25 years of effectively running the Russian Federation, that he's become invincible. His tools of repression are so pervasive that his hold on power is invulnerable.
I would argue that the real situation is quite different. And that part of the strategy of the U.S. intelligence community and allied intelligence communities now is to understand the fragility of Putin's leadership and conveying, developing and conveying to our political leadership a strategy to deal with the problem. And that's Vladimir Putin. There are a number of signs of weakness in the Putin regime, and if I were sitting in a room with [U.S. negotiator Steve] Witkoff, I would say, don't hand Putin a victory for free. Make him work hard for it, show our resolve. Let him know that he's weak. We are strong, and we're not backing down.
Sanner: I feel like the art of the deal is actually required here. How would you advise Steve Witkoff in dealing with Putin?
Kolbe: I'd say don't mistake any deal that they sign to be a deal, because they'll take whatever tactical win they can from whatever tactical advantage they get from the terms of the deal. But they will violate that deal. The deal means nothing to them. It is simply a means to an end. Whereas for you getting the deal is the end.
Goff: I would say to Mr. Witkoff, look at who Putin's allies are. You’ve got Russia, Iran, North Korea with China lurking in the background, Belarus throwing in some support there, rather unwillingly, like a hostage. I mean, this is not just a battle of nation states. This is a battle of values. And I have to admit, every time I see a UN vote and the United States is listed with Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and others, I cringe. So I would have to say, Mr. Witkoff, see who’s on the other side of the table with the Russians and pay attention to that.
Lute: I think this is reasonably simple. Witkoff may be a New York real estate genius. He's not a genius in international relations, international negotiations, or with regard to his counterpart Russia. So I would say, Mr. Witkoff, have a touch of humility here about what you know and what you don't know, and buy some insurance against what you don't know by surrounding yourself with your negotiating team with people who do know. He should have a couple native speaker Russians on his team. He should not go into a room alone without a U.S. native speaking interpreter. And he should go in with an interagency team and not talk about military things unless he has a military advisor. So before you rush into a room, especially a room with someone as crafty as Vladimir Putin in a one-on-one session over hours, know what you're talking about, and spend some time with your allies.
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