Former FBI Chief of Counterespionage Peter Strzok on Russian Intelligence in the United States

Abstract

Former FBI Chief of Counterespionage Peter Strzok on Russian Intelligence in the United States Anoushka Ramesh and Peter Strzok (bio) In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as recent Russian intelligence and foreign influence operations in the United States, the world is debating the effects of Russian interference on U.S. security. Peter Strzok, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Chief of Counterespionage and head of the Bureau's investigation into the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 presidential election, joins GJIA to analyze the consequences of Russian operations in America. GJIA: Some news outlets report that Vladimir Putin is irate about how long the invasion of Ukraine is taking and blames the FSB (Federal Security Service) for inadequate intelligence, jailing the head of the FSB's 5th Department and dismissing many of his spies. To what extent do you believe that misleading information was truly the reason for the invasion's prolongation, and why was the FSB, and not the GRU (Chief Intelligence Office) or the SVR (External Intelligence Service), given the lead intel role? PS: That is a great question. First, Putin came out of the intelligence services. He was a KGB, a then-Soviet officer stationed in Germany, and came up in the Russian government through the intelligence services. So he certainly is a practitioner. He understands what the capabilities are, what the limitations are, and the dynamics between the different services. Certainly, what is interesting about the Ukraine conflict is that what traditionally might have been a larger role for the GRU—Russian military intelligence—in the invasion was given to, as you noted, the fifth department within the FSB. There are probably a lot of speculative reasons for that. But if you are anticipating that you are going to annex Ukraine, and it becomes part of Russia, that is going to be a domestic entity that your domestic security service would want a leading role in. I think Russian intelligence services are certainly not immune to the types of corruption and problems we have seen across the board within the Russian government. Certainly, that has been on display with the Russian military in terms of their ability to maintain equipment, whether that is vehicle motors, engines, and tires, and planning and coordinating complex activities. There is some indication that the failures on the military side are a result of money that should have been spent for maintenance or other types of operations being skimmed off the top. I think it is a reasonable question to ask whether the same sorts of things were going on with the intelligence services. It is a government based on kleptocracy, and there is no reason that that sense of what constitutes appropriate behavior is diluted all the way down. So yes, within the high levels of the Russian government—within the oligarchs—there is a great deal of personal skimming going on. There is no doubt in my mind [End Page 221] that lower-level intelligence officers and military commanders are doing the same sort of thing. And there was some indication that Putin was frustrated about the lack of accurate intelligence or assessments that he received from his intelligence services. There is also some indication that Sergey Beseda, who was the head of the fifth department, was initially under house arrest and has now been moved to imprisonment. It might have been different if there had been, within the FSB, a great deal of money and resources put into developing intelligence about Ukraine and paying sources rather than being funneled into everybody's pockets. And the last factor to think about is that Putin's information is increasingly limited, both in terms of the people that he allows into his orbit that can speak to him, and him not liking information being presented to him that is either contrary to what he wants to hear or what he wants to do. So you have a shrinking universe of people who can bring information to him who are terrified about angering the boss by telling him something he does not want to hear. It is a complicated question. I do think there is a...