CIA's Russian recruitment drive faces Trump-era challenges

Over the past three years, the CIA has been proactive in recruiting Russians for high-ranking government or security positions, "The Guardian" reported. The agency aimed to turn these individuals into double agents and even produced a recruitment video portraying cooperation with the CIA as a patriotic choice for those discontent with the war in Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's regime.

"We don't know for sure whether recruitment was carried out, and we shouldn't know, but it was definitely a strategy, and moments of crisis like this in the past were a golden opportunity for recruitment campaigns by Western services," said intelligence historian from Harvard’s Kennedy School, Calder Walton, quoted in the text.

As recently as 2023, CIA Director William Burns emphasized that there was a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to recruit Russians. A year earlier, Richard Moore, the director of the British MI6 intelligence service, compared the invasion of Ukraine to the Prague Spring, after which many Russians chose to cooperate with Western services.

In recent months, several European sources from security and intelligence circles have confirmed in anonymous statements that Western intelligence agencies have intensified agent recruitment.

The Guardian forecasts that the geopolitical situation may change beginning in January. The article's author wrote that Donald Trump's potential return to the White House and Tulsi Gabbard's appointment as a candidate for Director of National Intelligence, who coordinates all U.S. intelligence services, could be dangerous for double agents in Russia.

The British newspaper cautions on its website that those who act as double agents must understand the inherent dangers, including the threat of being discovered and facing lethal consequences.