The US foreign intelligence agency CIA hopes to be able to recruit dissatisfied Russians as sources. The “corrosive effects of war” offer a “unique opportunity,” said CIA chief Burns. Telegram also plays a role in this.
The US foreign intelligence service CIA wants to benefit from the recent events in Russia. The actions of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin are “a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and regime,” CIA Director William Burns said at the Ditchley Foundation’s annual lecture in Oxfordshire, England.
Message sent to Telegram
The disappointment in Russia over the war in Ukraine offers new opportunities to collect intelligence information. “This dissatisfaction creates a unique opportunity for us at the CIA,” Burns said of agent recruitment. “We will not let this opportunity go to waste.”
Burns pointed out that the CIA recently sent a message to Russians on the online service Telegram. It would tell them how to contact the US Secret Service on what is known as the dark web, a hidden area of the internet. This message from his ministry was viewed 2.5 million times in the first week.
Burns denies involvement in Wagner uprising
Burns said the consequences of the Wagner uprising are likely to linger on Russian society and the regime in Moscow for some time to come. He described the mutiny as an “armed challenge to the Russian state”. But it was an internal Russian matter in which the US played no role.
Burns was in Ukraine shortly before the Wagner uprising, according to a US official. There he met secret service officials and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a US official told the AFP news agency. During his trip, Burns said he would share intelligence information “to help Ukraine defend against Russian aggression.”