Yezhov’s infiltration model and the Russian Federation’s seizure of Crimea

Abstract

The author analysed the scale of betrayal among the officers and officials of the Ukrainian state during the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014. The main research problem was an attempt to explain the anomaly in the activities of the special services in the form of recruiting 1,400 officers of the Ukrainian SBU to the Russian FSB. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon in the practice of secret services, the author used the theory of offensive intelligence and counter-intelligence created and developed in the USSR from the early 1920s, as well as the findings of cognitive psychology regarding the phenomenon of projection as the main mechanism for explaining the behavior of other people. Thanks to the synthesis of psychology and the analysis of the theoretical achievements of the Soviet secret services, the author put forward a hypothesis about the mass recruitment of the SBU officers in the Crimea long before the annexation. According to the author, the main mechanisms of mass recruitment of agents in order to control the opponent’s organisation were broadly understood corruption and cronyism characteristic to the post-Soviet area.