Russia steps up subversive activities against post-Soviet countries - Ukraine intelligence

Russian special services are building up a network of agents of influence in the countries of the former USSR to run malign campaigns against the sovereignty and national interests of the targeted nations.

That’s according to Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, Head of the Center for Defense Reforms, Coordinator of the Interdepartmental Platform for Combating Hybrid Threats, which operates within the framework of Ukraine-NATO cooperation, who delivered the news on Facebook, referring to the Ukrainian intelligence, Guildhall reports.

“According to the information received by Ukrainian intelligence, the Russian special services are planning to build up the network of agents of influence in the countries of the former USSR in order to subvert the sovereignty and national interests of these countries, provoking separatism and extremism. The efforts will be undertaken under the guise of the operations of the Federal Agency for CIS, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation, better known as Rossotrudnichestvo," the expert said.

“For this purpose, Rossotrudnichestvo intends to set up a network of centers of Russian influence that will operate on the territory of Kazakhstan (Alma-Ata, Nur-Sultan, Shimkent, Karaganda, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kostanay, Petropavlovsk, Pavlodar, Atyrau, Uralsk, Aktau, Semey, Lisakovsk, Kokshetau, Stepnogorsk (cities hosting a significant Russian diaspora), Armenia (Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Abovyan, Vagharshapat), Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek, Osh, Karakol (focused on the Russian-speaking diaspora, mainly living in the North), Azerbaijan (Baku, Ganja, Nakhichevan (measures are aimed at destabilizing the Lezgi ethnic minority), Tajikistan (Dushanbe, Khujand, Bokhtar), Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Samarkand, Jizzakh), Turkmenistan (Ashgabat, Dashoguz, Magdanli), Moldova (Chisinau) where destabilization efforts will be targeting the Gagauz ethnic minority,” Danylyuk reported.

Earlier, Canadian intelligence said Moscow had stepped up work to search for opportunities to launch cyber attacks on targets in NATO countries and the European Union.