Russia is infamous for its secret service carrying out the most audacious of crimes.
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| [Espionage-Russian spy] |
It's a hazardous game made popular by Hollywood films and old Russian TV series, and dramatized by well-known authors with storylines and assassins set in places like Turkey. However, when it comes to spycraft, there is one country that isn't messing around: Russia.
Russia's secret agency is known for committing the most heinous of atrocities. Some even consider Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, as a Russian counterpart of the fictitious James Bond.
The real question today is why are so many spies being dispatched from Russia with such affection?
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James Bond is despatched to Turkey in the 1963 film 'From Russia With Love' in search of a decoding machine known as Lektor. Along the way, he falls in love with a Russian spy and is pursued by assassins from the secretive organisation 'Spectre' and Donald 'Red' Grant, a former KGB agent.
Ian Flaming placed the story in Istanbul, possibly as a result of the city's real-life ties to espionage. Turkey was a hotspot for dubious intelligence operations and contacts in the 1940s.
Elyeza Bazna, the renowned World War II Albanian-Nazi spy known as " Cicero," toured Istanbul. Kim Philby, a Cambridge graduate spy who is regarded as one of Britain's most effective double agents, did the same. David Cornwell, better known as John le Carre, who dramatized the hunt for Philby in the classic thriller 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,' was one of the British spies betrayed by Philby to his Soviet superiors. Scenes from the remake of the film were shot in Istanbul.
Turkey arrested and expelled two Russian agents acting as journalists who attempted to video a facility producing Turkish military drones in December 2020. Little was mentioned, but those two are the tip of a Russian Beluga whale that has been hacked.
Following the attempted assassination of a former KGB double agent residing in the United Kingdom in 2018, two Russian GRU agents were identified. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned, yet they were able to live. Dawn Sturgess, on the other hand, perished as a result of the chemical weapons assaults.
Russian operatives are also suspected of being responsible for a weapons dump explosion in the Czech Republic in 2014. Weapons, on the other hand, were said to be on their way to Ukraine. The Czech Republic has urged its NATO partners to follow its lead in expelling Moscow's diplomatic personnel.
Following this, a number of Eastern European countries withdrew Russian ambassadors suspected of being linked to Russian intelligence. In retaliation, Russia expelled a large number of diplomats.
Earlier this year a frigate captain of Italian navy was arrested and suspended as Russian spy suspect while passing top secret documents to Russia spies which shook the intelligence agencies of Italy as well as their government.
What is Russia's objective for deploying spies all around the world?
Primarily, to safeguard the safety of Moscow's enormous network of oil and gas pipeline infrastructure. But it's also to keep an eye on journalists and dissidents who may pose a threat to Russia's government.
Russia has mastered the use of cyber warfare and information warfare. In reality, there is proof that Russia used cyber hacking to assist Donald Trump become President of the United States and more importantly, into the White House, at the expense of Hilary Clinton.
The Kremlin claims there is a "massive anti-Russian hysteria," and Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened foreign countries with a "asymmetric, quick, and severe" response if they breach Russia's red lines.
When the Soviet Union fell apart, Vladimir Putin's ascension to the head of Russia's intelligence service was hidden behind walls and top secret data were burned in Russian embassies in East Germany. Putin said, " I personally burned a huge amount of material. We burned so much staff that the furnace burst. "
Some people are wondering if Ian Flaming predicted Vladimir Putin's rise to power in his character Anatoly Gogol, or whether Putin was influenced by Ian Flaming's characters?
[This article may resemble TRT World's Decoded]