Moscow Increasingly Using Its Journalists Abroad for Espionage, Dobrokhotov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 16 – Moscow is increasingly using its journalists abroad not to spread disinformation – it has other means for that – but to penetrate opposition groups and to work as spies and spotters for spies, according to Roman Dobrokhotov, the chief editor of The Insider whom a group of Bulgarians recently attempted to kidnap.
    Most Western journalists and most Russian opposition groups are ill-prepared to defend against such penetration and espionage activity, he says, because Moscow prepares such agents by having them work first in analogous roles inside Russia, something that gives them credibility outside of Russia (pointmedia.io/story/67604c0c3d97a5c1c5781f13).
    When these journalists arrive in the West, they already have the patina of opposition figures and are typically accepted as such, Dobrokhotov continues. That allows them to work as spies or at least as spotters who can identify people that more senior Russian intelligence operatives can focus on as possible recruits.
    These pseudo-journalists are thus often very successful in such operations; and there are two additional reasons why this is an effective tactic, although The Insider editor doesn’t mention them. On the one hand, spreading suspicions about such people can disorder opposition groups in the West.
    And on the other, if these pseudo-journalists are exposed as spies, that works for Moscow’s purposes as well. It may lose a few agents, but it gains because both Russians abroad and Westerners will become ever more suspicious of working with real opposition groups, again helping the Kremlin.