The CIA and allied intelligence services are expanding efforts to recruit "insider" and high-level Russians to spy for the West, following last month's short-lived mutiny by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which was widely perceived as a serious challenge to Putin's grip on power.
The CIA director himself has called the Wagner rebellion an "opportunity" to continue to exploit cracks in the Russian system, also amid continued domestic uncertainty for the future amid the Ukraine war. Director William Burns in remarks to the Aspen Security Forum late last week bluntly told the audience that the US intelligence community sees a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to exploit influential levels of Russian society and government. He had said something similar earlier in the summer.
He openly called for recruits from among Russia's elite while saying, "I think Putin is already a little bit uneasy as he looks over his shoulder."
The comments also came as Putin cracks down on 'angry patriots', or pro-war hardliners who think Putin has been too hesitant in executing the war effort. One prominent blogger and ex-security official, Igor Girkin, who led Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region in 2014, has recently been arrested on "extremism" charges.
The CIA's Burns continued in his remarks from last week: "What it resurrected was some deeper questions … about Putin’s judgment, about his relative detachment from events and even about his indecisiveness."
"I think in many ways it exposed some of the significant weaknesses in a system that Putin has built," he said further.
Also last week during a speech in Prague, MI6 Chief Richard Moore had a similar assessment, saying "our door is always open" for Russian officials who are fed up with the war.
"There are many Russians today who are silently appalled by the sight of their armed forces pulverizing Ukrainian cities, expelling innocent families from their homes, and kidnapping thousands of children," Moore said last Wednesday.
"I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 months and join hands with us. Our door is always open," he said.
Meanwhile, there are fresh figures out this week on Russia's continuing war-driven capital flight:
A record $253 billion has been pulled out of Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian Central Bank has said.
The net capital outflow from Russia starting February 2022 and ending June 2023 was calculated by the Bank’s Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Forecasting.
“Net inflows on current transaction accounts [of $236 billion] and net outflows on financial accounts have reached unprecedented levels,” the Bank’s experts said in their analysis published Monday.
The flight of $239 billion from Russia last year, including $13 billion in the pre-invasion month of January, was four times the amount that was pulled out of the country in 2021, according to the analysis.
Burns additionally commented on the West's support to Ukraine as sending a "message" to Beijing related to threats against Taiwan...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has reinforced China's doubts regarding a potential incursion into Taiwan, said CIA Director, William Burns pic.twitter.com/Mq6I1UvGeU
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 21, 2023
As for Wagner, it's been widely acknowledged that Prigozhin fundamentally sought a coup within the defense ministry. While he did issue rare criticism directly at Putin amid the events of June 23-24, he later explained he wasn't trying to overthrow the government. He has lately been seen at Wagner camps inside Belarus, but also appears to be moving freely in and out of Russia via his private plane as well.
