No matter where you sit, it is possible to see the octopus-like arms and reach of the Russian Federation with respect to the West. It is equally obvious, NATO states and others have been doubling down on thwarting Russian shenanigans and in doing so have been quite successful at populating their respect prisons with Russians, acting on behalf of Putin’s regime.
This week we saw a swap of prisoners between Russia and several western nations to include the USA. Included in the swap was Paul Whelan, who was arrested years ago, tried and convicted and Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE. In exchange for the two U.S. citizens, a green-card holder (Kurmasheva), and several Russian dissidents held in Russian prisons, Russia received several Russian intelligence personnel who had been arrested and convicted for cybercrime, as well as one convicted of murder.
Prisoner exchange? Why?
The United States had their citizens returned home to their loved ones. Russia recovered their intelligence officers. Several of the returning Russians were in prison for cybercrimes. These individuals can be placed back into the hopper and once again act under the direction the Russian Federation. The timing? Just this past week, Russia approved cryptocurrency farms to help the county generate hard currency, given the ruble has tanked. Will Russia be taking a page from the North Korean handbook on how to finance a country, robbing establishments and persons of their crypto currency.
Many will argue, me included, that these exchanges where criminals are exchanged for innocents, that we are encouraging Putin to effectively replicated the taking on innocents and creating hostages that can be exchanged for his minions carrying out the dirty work in the west, work for which they will eventually be caught, tried and convicted.
Russia’s low intensity conflict with the west
Immediately before the beginning of the Olympic Games a Russian national, an asset of the FSB (Russian Internal Security Service), was arrested, as he was planning on destabilizing the games. In Germany the BASF chemical plant had an explosion and the plant was shut down pending repair. Contemporaneously with the arrest in France, we saw seven arrested in Belgium as they were preparing a terrorist attack. Two of their colleagues, Russian citizens, were arrested in Germany.
Investigators are continuing to try and determine who was responsible for the cut/damaged train lines and fiber optic cables which have disrupted portions of the country.
Earlier in the year, the Washington Post ran a piece which discussed Russia’s efforts to recruit sympathizers online to conduct sabotage in Europe. Given the bevy of events which have been occurring across Europe and coupled with the recent warning put out by the DoD to U.S. military personnel in Europe, we may expect these activities to continue, regardless of prisoner swaps, as Putin and company still have U.S. citizens in custody and any traveler to Russia at this time is putting themselves at risk to being victimized by Russian government on trumped up charges in order to incarcerate and when their personnel are in the hands of the West, orchestrate an exchange.
