CIA Return to White House puts Russians used as spies in peril

For the past three years, the CIA has run an unusually bold outreach programme.

- Shaun Walker

It targeted Russians within the country's government and security services, attempting to turn them into US agents.

Slickly produced recruitment videos portrayed cooperation with the US secret agency as the patriotic choice for officials disaffected with Vladimir Putin's regime and the war in Ukraine. The videos ended with instructions on how to contact the CIA in a secure manner.

From January, however, any Russians who answered those calls will be facing a very different geopolitical reality. Donald Trump will be back in the White House and, if he pursues the same policies as last time he was president, will look to make an ally of Putin's Russia. His nomination for a key intelligence post is Tulsi Gabbard, who has raised concerns with her remarks on foreign policy in recent years, including speaking of "Russia's legitimate security concerns" as part of the cause of the war in Ukraine.

The dramatic change in potential policy towards Russia and Ukraine, combined with Trump's dismissal of concerns over the security of classified information, may lead to sleepless nights among any agents who remain inside Russia.

"We don't know for sure whether recruitments have been made, and nor should we know, but it's certainly been the strategy, and moments of crisis like this in the past have been a golden opportunity for recruitment drives for western services," said Calder Walton, an intelligence historian at Harvard University and the author of a recent book on the history of the intelligence battle between Moscow and Washington.

Any agents would probably be aware of the danger inherent in their decision, and the gruesome history of predecessors who came to sticky ends. During the late Soviet period, information from moles inside the CIA and FBI led to the KGB uncovering and executing numerous Soviet officials who had cooperated with the US.