The Spying Game - Thoughts on the Berlin Arrest

A British embassy employee in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia. The individual, reportedly a UK national and locally employed civilian had allegedly provided material to the Russians since 2020, and faces prosecution for espionage.

This case has thrust the murky world of espionage into the limelight in a way that rarely happens these days. There is often a view held that spying is ‘so Cold War darling’ and doesn’t happen, so why worry about it? After all, the Cold Wars over, we won and we all love each other right?

Sadly Moscow didn’t get that particular memo, and the reality is that in 2021, the threat from espionage is as great, if not greater than during the Cold War. There are several key lessons to draw from this that are worth reflecting on in more detail.

Firstly, its important to distinguish between diplomat and LEC – although a British national, there is no suggestion that the individual involved working as an FCDO diplomat. British Embassies and High Commissions around the world employ a diverse range of staff, usually recruited from the local population – its cheaper and often results in lower turnover and has longer term benefits as well.

This individual does not appear to have been a member of the Diplomatic Service, doubtless a relief as this would have been an exceptionally serious breach. As an LEC they would have had far less access to sensitive material or the more interesting parts of the Embassy.

That Russia is running a spy in Germany highlights the continued relevance of the UK as an intelligence target for the Russian Government. It also highlights that the Russians are likely feeling the pinch from the expulsions of 2018 over the Skripal affair, which dismantled their network of intelligence officers in the UK, and impacted more widely in Europe as well.

This move, a diplomatic masterstroke by the UK almost certainly had a huge effect on Russian ability to run agents, and conduct espionage in the UK. As such, they have had to focus their efforts on other, easier to access locations like Germany in an attempt to get lucky.

The decision to move in and arrest the individual publicly will not only be embarrassing for Russia (theoretically at least, in reality the regime are unlikely to publicly give a damn), but also more seriously will cause ripples that will cause yet further disruption to Russian operations.

Arresting a suspected spy causes a lengthy damage control exercise by the agency running the agent. They need to work out how their agent was compromised, when did it happen and did the agent potentially get turned a long time previously. How credible is the material they have provided to the agency, and can it still be used or trusted, or have they been fed lies by their opponents?

More seriously, which of the agencies intelligence officers have been compromised? How much was exposed, how long were they being tailed for and how many other operations may have been compromised as a result? Most seriously, how did the betrayal happen – was it bad luck, good tradecraft by the opposition, or was there a rotten apple in their midst that betrayed that operation – who could it be, and what else could be at risk?

The ripples will widen and cause problems across their intelligence collection network, potentially causing a not insignificant amount of disruption and impacting on wider collection operations for some time to come. This is a good thing from the Western perspective.

A key lesson here is that this episode highlights the importance of international cooperation when it comes to disrupting intelligence operations. There has doubtless been a great deal of work between British and German organisations to make this arrest possible, and more will be required to provide evidence that meets the standard required for a criminal prosecution.

This isn’t just about working nicely together, its about ensuring that there is an ongoing means to exchange data, protect classified information, work in an atmosphere of mutual trust and ensure that information provided can be used in court. This is time consuming, not remotely glamorous but essential to ensuring good operational outcomes. It is a helpful reminder that bureaucrats are the vital unsung heroes in ensuring that the right outcome can be reached.

More widely this is a good reminder of just how important the UK intelligence community is in protecting against these threats. They rarely see much public attention, preferring to work quietly and with little attention, but the work done by organisations like MI5 and GCHQ in disrupting hostile state activity in the UK, identifying threats and working to disrupt them is critical to all of our security.

While much attention is perhaps paid on the ‘business end’ of national security – tanks, guns and warships, often the ultimate guarantor of ensuring the nation and its secrets remain safe is those individuals working without public recognition in jobs that are both demanding and discreet. The nation owes far more than it will ever realise to the men and women of UKIC.

Perhaps the final ‘hot take’ is that the threat from espionage is more real than it ever has been. Although it sounds the stuff of bad spy novels, the fact is that Russia presents a clear threat to the UK, and will continue to do so. This requires the expenditure of time, effort and resources in trying to counter these threats in a way that minimises the harm they can do.

The threats can and do come from a variety of angles – cyber attack remains a highly effective way of causing harm, and compromising secrets – both commercial and government based. You only have to google cases like “Mia Ash” who turned out to be an Iranian regime backed hacker, or the Dark Hotel network to understand that there are many countries conducting effective cyber campaigns.

The approach vectors are increasingly diverse – the Cold War days of trying to understand how to make an approach to a potential recruit, the agonising over what their interests and pressure points were and how to determine if they were credible or not has been replaced by the rise of LinkedIn.

These days its possible to do most of your target research via social media, spotting those with genuine access and those who you may want to target.  Typing ‘Trident’ into LinkedIn is usually a scarily easy way to find out people in the entirety of the UK nuclear firing chain for instance…

This rise of easier ways to approach people, and communicate with them also makes it harder for agencies to carry out counter espionage operations. Trying to spot the disaffected individual, or work out who may pose an insider threat risk is much harder when people have so many different ways to contact a sympathetic foreign ear – these days you don’t need to walk into a foreign embassy to volunteer your services, you can discreetly reach out via a range of methods which may never be spotted.

That this is possible makes the case for reform of the Official Secrets Act more compelling than ever. It is arguably not effective for the world we find ourselves in- it’s a great piece of legislation for the world of the First and Second World Wars, it is less effective in the modern world.

That explains why there is a policy push to update the act, and legislation around foreign agents – to make it easier to deport those suspected of spying in a way that avoids a wider incident. Expect to see much more focus on this in the near future as the Government tries to bring more modern legislation to the fore.

Overall this incident serves as a very helpful reminder that there is a shadow war being fought in plain sight. Across Europe the Russians are actively engaged in operations, and the Western intelligence community is doing its utmost to foil them. If you think the Russians are not a threat, then you are, at best, a useful idiot.

There is of course the school of thought that the Russians are not the vaunted service they once were. They seem to be having a lot of accidents, cases going wrong and unwanted exposure. The failure at Salisbury, the compromise of the Illegals network, the exposure of ongoing incidents in the Czech Republic and other intelligence problems point to organisations dining out on past fondly remembered glories, rather than retaining an enduring professional credibility. Russian intelligence may be far less capable than they desperately wish to be the case.

This will undoubtedly not be the last case of spying that is dealt with – if anything it could be the tip of the iceberg. But hopefully with the result today, we can earnestly hope that many senior Russian intelligence officers are despondently looking forward to an unexpected and unplanned long and unhappy retirement counting trees...