CIA's Russian recruitment efforts risk setback with Trump's return

In the past three years, the CIA has been quite bold in recruiting Russians holding high government or security services positions, "The Guardian" reported. According to the publication's author, they aimed to turn them into double agents. They produced a recruitment film that portrayed cooperation with the CIA as a patriotic choice for those unhappy with the war in Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's regime.

We do not know for sure whether such recruitments were carried out, and we should not know, but it certainly was a strategy, and moments of crisis were an excellent opportunity for recruitment by Western services, said intelligence historian Calder Walton from Harvard’s Kennedy School, quoted in the text.

As recently as 2023, CIA Director William Burns emphasized the "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to recruit Russians. A year earlier, the director of the British MI6 intelligence service, Richard Moore, compared the invasion of Ukraine to the Prague Spring, after which many Russians decided 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 geopolitical situation may change from January, "The Guardian" forecasts. The return of Donald Trump to the White House and the potential appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as a candidate for the Director of National Intelligence, who coordinates all U.S. intelligence services, could be dangerous for double agents in Russia – wrote the publication's author.

The British newspaper cautions on its website that those who choose to act as double agents must recognize the inherent dangers, including the risk of exposure and potential death.