WARSAW, Poland — Ukraine has identified hundreds of Russian intelligence officers operating throughout Europe, according to a Ukrainian spy agency that published a purported list of the foreign spies with their contact information.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency published a list of alleged “Russian FSB officers involved in the criminal activities of the aggressor country in Europe,” replete with personally identifiable information. The database links 620 names to their purported date and place of birth, passport numbers, “signature, debts, tickets, credit trips, SIM cards, modems, vehicles,” and other information.
“Ukraine special services are very good,” said a senior European official, who discussed the revelations on condition of anonymity. “I don’t know yet about this concrete [set of revelations], but as I know they are good, I’m sure this is reliable. In this business, you only bluff once.”
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The Washington Examiner has not authenticated the list. Ukrainian officials have an incentive to claim as many intelligence-related victories as possible as invading Russian forces attempt to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But U.S. and European officials will be eager to investigate the list.
“This publication is crucial because [it] helps now all other counter-intelligence agencies to backtrack activities of those [FSB] persons and also their contacts and networks,” the senior European official said.
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The FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet Union’s KGB, has special significance within the Russian system. Russian President Vladimir Putin led the FSB before then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin tapped him as his successor. Putin’s successor at the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, has referred to FSB personnel as “our new ‘nobility’” early in his tenure as spy chief.
That reconstruction of their activities could lead to the mass exposure of sources in Europe for the Russian spy agency, the official emphasized.
“FSB has enlarged its foreign operations during the years,” the official said.
