Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 3 – In the best
tradition of the Soviet intelligence services from which he comes, Vladimir
Putin is “attempting to destabilize the situation in Ukraine by using
ultra-right groups,” according to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who
told SkyNews that he considers Russia to blame for the deaths of Ukrainian
National Guardsmen in Kyiv.
Poroshenko added that Moscow’s
approach in recent times has taken on “an unpredictable character” (news.sky.com/story/1545646/poroshenko-blames-russia-for-police-deaths and
nr2.com.ua/News/politics_and_society/Poroshenko-schitaet-chto-v-gibeli-nacgvardeycev-vinovata-Rossiya-105246.html).
But if Putin’s on again-off again
aggression against Ukraine is unpredictable in one sense – no one can be sure
when he will change course next – it is predictable in two others. On the one
hand, it keeps both Ukraine and its Western supporters off balance, allowing some
in both to suggest that there is a possibility for “peace in our time.”
And on the other, Putin’s
penetration and use of extreme right-wing nationalist groups is absolutely
consistent with Soviet intelligence service practice and Putin’s own approach
not only in reaching out to the radical right in Europe – and he is likely to
do more of that during the migrant crisis – but also in using nominally
anti-Moscow groups for Moscow’s purposes.
Doing so provides him with plausible
deniability -- many are reluctant to see the hand of Moscow in the actions of
groups that are explicitly anti-Russian – thus providing Moscow with cover and ultimately
giving the Russian center the chance to sacrifice these groups at will. Indeed,
a plan to sacrifice them is inevitably part of Moscow’s modus operandi.
The classic Soviet model for such
activities was Operation Trust, in which the Cheka set up a fake anti-Soviet
resistance group, the Monarchist Union of Central Russia, allowed some of its
members to engage in terrorist actions, used it to identify and attract back to
the USSR prominent Soviet opponents, and then exposed it to discredit
completely those involved with it.
That group, like others the Soviets
set up in the past and that the Russians may be involved in helping to organize
or at least exploit now, had three other benefits for Moscow as well. First, it
divided the opposition to Moscow by sowing suspicions among it about who was “real”
and who was “fake.”
Second, it allowed Moscow to profit
from the fact that many were inclined to dismiss charges of Soviet or Russian
involvement with such groups as resembling the little boy who cried wolf, thus
undermining the critics in the eyes of others as well and making it even less
likely they will be taken seriously.
And third, it helped Moscow identify
those who were its most dangerous opponents, people who could not be
compromised, and set them up for kidnapping of assassination as in the case of
White Russian General Aleksandr Kutepov who was deeply suspicious of the Trust
throughout its existence.
Vasily Mitrokhin, the defector who
has written about Soviet intelligence operations, underscores the continuing
importance of the Trust for Russian intelligence operations and thus for Putin.
He says that the Trust archives were not kept at SVR headquarters as one might
expect but rather in the special archive of the FSB at the Lubyanka.
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