Russian espionage in the United States

Russian espionage in the United States has occurred since at least during the Cold War, by the Soviet Union, and likely well before. According to United States government, by 2007 it had reached Cold War levels.[1]

Operations

Espionage

According to former Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Colonel Stanislav Lunev, "SVR and GRU (Russia's political and military intelligence agencies, respectively) are operating against the U.S. in a much more active manner than they were during even the hottest days of the Cold War."[2] From the end of the 1980s, KGB and later SVR began to create "a second echelon" of "auxiliary agents in addition to our main weapons, illegals and special agents", according to former SVR officer Kouzminov.[3] These agents are legal immigrants, including scientists and other professionals. Another SVR officer who defected to Britain in 1996 described details about thousand Russian agents and intelligence officers, some of them "illegals" who live under deep cover abroad.

Electronic espionage

In April 2015, CNN reported that "Russian hackers" had "penetrated sensitive parts of the White House" computers in "recent months." It was said that the FBI, the Secret Service, and other U.S. intelligence agencies categorized the attacks "among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems."[4]

Expulsion of intelligence agents

President Donald Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian intelligence and diplomatic staff from the United States following the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The closure of the consulate in Seattle, Washington was also ordered, based on the belief of US intelligence officials that the consulate was serving as a key base of operations for the Russian intelligence operations in the US.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Putin spy war on the West. The Sunday Times. May 20, 2007
  2. ↑ Expulsion of Russian Spies Teaches Moscow a Needed Lesson by Stanislav Lunev, 22 March 2001
  3. ↑ Alexander Kouzminov Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West, Greenhill Books, 2006, ISBN 1-85367-646-2 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2005-04-25.
  4. ↑ Evan Perez; Shimon Prokupecz (8 April 2015). "How the U.S. thinks Russians hacked the White House". CNN. Retrieved 17 December 2016. Russian hackers behind the damaging cyber intrusion of the State Department in recent months used that perch to penetrate sensitive parts of the White House computer system, according to U.S. officials briefed on the investigation.
  5. ↑ Rucker, Philip; Birnbaum, Michael; Nakashima, Ellen (26 March 2018). "Trump administration expels 60 Russian officers, shuts Seattle consulate in response to attack on former spy in Britain". Washington Post.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.