Kevin Riehle, a lecturer at Brunel University in London who previously served in various counterintelligence roles in the United States, said the activity was consistent with Russian active measures.
“It’s normal for Russian services to target people in political life. They rarely get a senior person but usually someone who is a friend of a senior person, or a supporter who has the ear of someone in power. Rarely does a Russian intelligence officer get the luck of recruiting a political representative,” Riehle said.
“That’s a win for any intelligence officer. As far as Russian intelligence is concerned, anyone who is an elected representative is a senior official. That’s a big deal.”
Riehle suspects the Russians who secretly interacted with Cobalt let him know they knew certain things about him.
“If a Russian intelligence officer studied a target and discovered they have a predilection for one thing or another that might be embarrassing, then it provides an angle to work on. Whether it is sex- related or being in debt, it gives an angle. And the intelligence officer will use this in conversations, sometimes overtly, saying, ‘We know you do such and such,’ or sometimes it’s more subtle, they will mention something fleetingly. They tend to pride themselves on being subtle rather than putting a gun to someone’s head,” he said.
Russia’s spies are likely to have learnt from their errors following Prokopiev’s expulsion, and have adjusted their tradecraft and embarked on a new phase of political warfare against the West since the invasion of Ukraine. In recent years, they have become more inventive, sending spies posing as Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war to Ireland. They are also using criminal gangs, republican paramilitaries in left-wing fringe groups and far-right extremists as proxies. The threat is continuing to evolve.
Despite the ongoing investigations and recent diplomatic expulsions, Cobalt remains very much under the radar, with only a select few in the security services aware of his connections to Russian intelligence.
The Kremlin’s infiltration into the core of Irish politics has been uncovered for the first time, prompting concern among senior officials in intelligence and defence services. Many now contend that the government must urgently implement new espionage legislation and other proactive measures to safeguard Ireland’s national security.
For the time being, however, Cobalt remains in place.
KGB tactics still serve Moscow well today
Russia’s intelligence war against Europe is relentless, John Mooney writes. The recruitment of a person in the Irish political establishment as an agent of influence reveals what Moscow’s spies can and will do. It is also a reminder of Ireland’s vulnerability to espionage and covert influence operations.
“Russia has a long history of active measures — what we in the West would call covert action — designed to inflame and aggravate grievances in target populations,” said Calder Walton, a historian of intelligence and global security at Harvard University and author of Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West.
Given Ireland’s history of sectarianism and paramilitary violence, the country is fertile ground for Russian operations, he said. “The same was true for the wedge issue of Brexit in Britain. It’s important to remember that many of the Kremlin’s ‘useful idiots’ — a KGB term — in the West didn’t even know they were being manipulated. Others, however, were willing assets.”
Since the mass expulsion of Russian spies from the EU in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has redoubled its efforts to recruit assets inside parliaments, police forces and militaries, civic organisations and universities.
This year spy rings have been uncovered in Britain, Germany, France and Bulgaria. Agents have even been found in the European parliament.
The Kremlin has not confined its malign activities to espionage: it is conducting sabotage and even murder. In February, Maksim Kuzminov, 28, a Russian air force pilot who defected to Ukraine, was shot dead in Spain, murdered by a unit whose members lived under deep cover.
The details of how Russian intelligence recruited someone in the Oireachtas, revealed by The Sunday Times today, echo the covert actions pioneered by the KGB in Soviet times.
Flattery and seduction, also known as honeypot traps, were used as inducements to entice Cobalt, the pseudonym we have given an Irish politician who has assisted Russian spies.
In other cases, laptops, social media accounts and the smartphones of other targets have been used by hackers to steal compromising information. Families are also targeted.
John Sipher, a former CIA officer, said Russia had a long history of conducting such operations. “The Russian security services would most definitely consider this person an asset, agent or source,” he said. “Politicians who take money or other inducements to make decisions that benefit the Kremlin can be considered agents of influence.”
He added: “Intelligence services seek people who can help them in some way, with some level of control — whether it’s ideological, financial or through blackmail.
“In the US, we usually look for sources that have access to information the US needs but cannot get any other way. Think of access to Kremlin decision-making or someone in Iran’s missile programme.
“Russians, on the other hand, recruit intelligence sources for spreading propaganda, disinformation or sabotage. They call these active measures, and they include not just collecting secrets but taking action: injecting chaos or false information into a country or company, supporting violent or fringe groups, and even assassination.”
Sipher continued: “It could be a politician who takes money to make decisions that benefit the Kremlin. It could be an editor that puts disinformation into their work, a person with a public persona that can make comments that help Russia, or a technician that puts something in a computer system.”
Russian agencies aim to disrupt, which in part explains why they went to such lengths to penetrate the Oireachtas.
Agent Cobalt has engaged in many activities that have undermined public trust in institutions, though for legal reasons we cannot say how.
To this day, Russia appears to be protecting him. Using an alleged honeypot to snare him was part of its toolkit.
Across the EU, the Russians are targeting politicians, civil servants and their families through cyberattacks, hacking smartphones, compromising communication. The families of Russian immigrants are urged to co-opt relatives. In Ireland, Russia forges links with paramilitaries, criminals and extremists.
Ireland, with its traditionally neutral stance, has long been considered a soft target compared with other EU nations because of official naivety — though that has changed as the government has wound down Russia’s diplomatic presence to a handful of people, including its ambassador, Yury Filatov.
The presence of Russian illegals, intelligence officers who operate under deep cover, is not known and hard to discover.
While countries such as the UK, Germany and France have frameworks in place to catch foreign agents, Ireland’s legal and security infrastructure is unequipped to handle such threats. Politicians cannot be watched unless there is evidence to show they have committed a crime. Even then, there would be a reluctance to apply for a surveillance warrant.
Since discovering Cobalt, Ireland has stepped up its co-operation with partner agencies to catch Russian agents and their handlers. It has become a battle that is likely to intensify after Ireland’s decisions to raise spending on defence and support Ukraine.
Both policies will draw President Putin’s ire as the Russian leader becomes even more determined to undermine the West.
Kevin Riehle, a lecturer at Brunel University in London who previously served in various counterintelligence roles in the United States, said the activity was consistent with Russian active measures.
“It’s normal for Russian services to target people in political life. They rarely get a senior person but usually someone who is a friend of a senior person, or a supporter who has the ear of someone in power. Rarely does a Russian intelligence officer get the luck of recruiting a political representative,” Riehle said.
“That’s a win for any intelligence officer. As far as Russian intelligence is concerned, anyone who is an elected representative is a senior official. That’s a big deal.”
Riehle suspects the Russians who secretly interacted with Cobalt let him know they knew certain things about him.
“If a Russian intelligence officer studied a target and discovered they have a predilection for one thing or another that might be embarrassing, then it provides an angle to work on. Whether it is sex- related or being in debt, it gives an angle. And the intelligence officer will use this in conversations, sometimes overtly, saying, ‘We know you do such and such,’ or sometimes it’s more subtle, they will mention something fleetingly. They tend to pride themselves on being subtle rather than putting a gun to someone’s head,” he said.
Russia’s spies are likely to have learnt from their errors following Prokopiev’s expulsion, and have adjusted their tradecraft and embarked on a new phase of political warfare against the West since the invasion of Ukraine. In recent years, they have become more inventive, sending spies posing as Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war to Ireland. They are also using criminal gangs, republican paramilitaries in left-wing fringe groups and far-right extremists as proxies. The threat is continuing to evolve.
Despite the ongoing investigations and recent diplomatic expulsions, Cobalt remains very much under the radar, with only a select few in the security services aware of his connections to Russian intelligence.
The Kremlin’s infiltration into the core of Irish politics has been uncovered for the first time, prompting concern among senior officials in intelligence and defence services. Many now contend that the government must urgently implement new espionage legislation and other proactive measures to safeguard Ireland’s national security.
For the time being, however, Cobalt remains in place.
KGB tactics still serve Moscow well today
Russia’s intelligence war against Europe is relentless, John Mooney writes. The recruitment of a person in the Irish political establishment as an agent of influence reveals what Moscow’s spies can and will do. It is also a reminder of Ireland’s vulnerability to espionage and covert influence operations.
“Russia has a long history of active measures — what we in the West would call covert action — designed to inflame and aggravate grievances in target populations,” said Calder Walton, a historian of intelligence and global security at Harvard University and author of Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West.
Given Ireland’s history of sectarianism and paramilitary violence, the country is fertile ground for Russian operations, he said. “The same was true for the wedge issue of Brexit in Britain. It’s important to remember that many of the Kremlin’s ‘useful idiots’ — a KGB term — in the West didn’t even know they were being manipulated. Others, however, were willing assets.”
Since the mass expulsion of Russian spies from the EU in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has redoubled its efforts to recruit assets inside parliaments, police forces and militaries, civic organisations and universities.
This year spy rings have been uncovered in Britain, Germany, France and Bulgaria. Agents have even been found in the European parliament.
The Kremlin has not confined its malign activities to espionage: it is conducting sabotage and even murder. In February, Maksim Kuzminov, 28, a Russian air force pilot who defected to Ukraine, was shot dead in Spain, murdered by a unit whose members lived under deep cover.
The details of how Russian intelligence recruited someone in the Oireachtas, revealed by The Sunday Times today, echo the covert actions pioneered by the KGB in Soviet times.
Flattery and seduction, also known as honeypot traps, were used as inducements to entice Cobalt, the pseudonym we have given an Irish politician who has assisted Russian spies.
In other cases, laptops, social media accounts and the smartphones of other targets have been used by hackers to steal compromising information. Families are also targeted.
John Sipher, a former CIA officer, said Russia had a long history of conducting such operations. “The Russian security services would most definitely consider this person an asset, agent or source,” he said. “Politicians who take money or other inducements to make decisions that benefit the Kremlin can be considered agents of influence.”
He added: “Intelligence services seek people who can help them in some way, with some level of control — whether it’s ideological, financial or through blackmail.
“In the US, we usually look for sources that have access to information the US needs but cannot get any other way. Think of access to Kremlin decision-making or someone in Iran’s missile programme.
“Russians, on the other hand, recruit intelligence sources for spreading propaganda, disinformation or sabotage. They call these active measures, and they include not just collecting secrets but taking action: injecting chaos or false information into a country or company, supporting violent or fringe groups, and even assassination.”
Sipher continued: “It could be a politician who takes money to make decisions that benefit the Kremlin. It could be an editor that puts disinformation into their work, a person with a public persona that can make comments that help Russia, or a technician that puts something in a computer system.”
Russian agencies aim to disrupt, which in part explains why they went to such lengths to penetrate the Oireachtas.
Agent Cobalt has engaged in many activities that have undermined public trust in institutions, though for legal reasons we cannot say how.
To this day, Russia appears to be protecting him. Using an alleged honeypot to snare him was part of its toolkit.
Across the EU, the Russians are targeting politicians, civil servants and their families through cyberattacks, hacking smartphones, compromising communication. The families of Russian immigrants are urged to co-opt relatives. In Ireland, Russia forges links with paramilitaries, criminals and extremists.
Ireland, with its traditionally neutral stance, has long been considered a soft target compared with other EU nations because of official naivety — though that has changed as the government has wound down Russia’s diplomatic presence to a handful of people, including its ambassador, Yury Filatov.
The presence of Russian illegals, intelligence officers who operate under deep cover, is not known and hard to discover.
While countries such as the UK, Germany and France have frameworks in place to catch foreign agents, Ireland’s legal and security infrastructure is unequipped to handle such threats. Politicians cannot be watched unless there is evidence to show they have committed a crime. Even then, there would be a reluctance to apply for a surveillance warrant.
Since discovering Cobalt, Ireland has stepped up its co-operation with partner agencies to catch Russian agents and their handlers. It has become a battle that is likely to intensify after Ireland’s decisions to raise spending on defence and support Ukraine.
Both policies will draw President Putin’s ire as the Russian leader becomes even more determined to undermine the West.