Trump’s return raises questions over future of CIA’s Russian recruitment drive

There are all sorts of safeguards in place about protecting the identity of any assets within the CIA. But the situation we are dealing with now means Trump can ask for any intelligence he wants, it’s his right,

said Walton

I know for a fact that during the first Trump admin one of the Five Eyes partners was careful about sharing intelligence on Russia that might end up in the White House. Closely allied intelligence services had protections in place for this exact question of Russia-related intelligence being compromised. It’s a fair working assumption to say the same thing will be true in the next administration,

said Walton

I think the Trump administration could be potentially extremely damaging for compromising secrets and protecting sources when it comes to Russia,

said Walton

That was a moment when a number of Russians decided … that it was their time to strike back against the system they were representing,

said Moore

But there are third countries where it is possible to meet these people,

said the source

Russians have a long history of spamming you with double agents. You think you want some information about a nuclear submarine, and the next day someone is offering it up. They still use this tactic, absolutely,

said one recently retired western intelligence source

Cold approaches are rarely successful but you never know. If there’s a 1% successes rate it’s still worth trying.”

Another former senior intelligence source said

There is also the fact that people might look at the Putin regime and wonder how stable it is; they may think, ‘OK, I can last a bit longer, but I need an exit strategy at some point,’

said one source

Our door is always open”.

Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6, used a rare public appearance in 2022 to say

The people around you may not want to know the truth. We want to.”

The video ends with the words

We don’t know for sure whether recruitments have been made, and nor should we know, but it’s certainly been the strategy, and moments of crisis like this in the past have been a golden opportunity for recruitment drives for western services,

said Calder Walton, an intelligence historian at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the author of a recent book on the history of the intelligence battle between Moscow and Washington

There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone,

Anton said, offering rare insight into the pervasive paranoia and surveillance on a Russian nuclear base

There might be some old-fashioned types of weapons in some areas, but the country has an enormous nuclear arsenal, a huge amount of warheads, including constant combat patrol on land, sea and air.”

The former officer said

We were ready to launch the forces into the sea and air and, in theory, carry out a nuclear strike."

In a chilling insight, Anton, not his real name, told the BBC

Before that, we had only exercises. But on the day the war started, the weapons were fully in place,

says the former officer in the Russian nuclear forces

They said that Ukrainian civilians are combatants and should be destroyed!”

he exclaims

It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn’t take any phones on to the nuclear base,

he explains

We had constant training exercises. Our reaction time was two minutes,

he says, with a hint of pride

All we had was Russian state TV, ... I didn’t really know what it all meant. I automatically carried out my duties. We weren’t fighting in the war, we were just guarding the nuclear weapons.”

says the former officer

There is a very strict selection process there. Everyone is a professional soldier – no conscripts,

he explains