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Intelligence agency obsessions can seem eccentric from a distance, but they map the mind and the game theory of the Kremlin’s security elite. Source dzen.ru It is a time of huge strain on the Russian despotism. Drones strike oil refineries with near-clockwork regularity, fuel queues stretch for miles from filling stations, and the leader’s aura of invincibility is under question. So it might seem a curious time for Russia’s guard dogs to be dredging up old conspiracy theories

Dating apps promise connection, chemistry, and maybe even love. For Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services, they also offer something else: data, emotional vulnerability, and a private channel to manipulate targets. When Russia launched its full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the front lines extended beyond the physical battlefield into the digital space. Among many other sites, dating platforms such as Tinder and its local equivalents became operati

Political meddling has long hampered German intelligence and security. Not any more. By Edward Lucas Penetrated by the opposition, paralysed by legal obstacles and subject to political interference, Germany’s intelligence services were for decades seen as at best useless, and at worst outright harmful. I remember a British spook in cold-war Berlin in the 1980s joking: “If you want Gorbachev to know something quickly, tell the Germans in strict secrecy: it will be on his desk

A profound anxiety about the espionage capabilities of the UK and France is rooted deep in the Kremlin’s consciousness. While the US...