BACKGROUND: At the bilateral level, Russian intelligence has utilised old KGB networks and common Soviet heritage to influence threat perceptions of local leaders. Soon after the end of the USSR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and its domestic counterpart FSB (then FSK) signed data exchange and joint operations deals with all CIS states. Russian intelligence stations were opened throughout the region, most with a remit to conduct operations against third states. In Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the FSB was granted powers to spy against Russian nationals suspected of breaching the official secrets act. Belarus is Russia’s closest intelligence ally. The SVR Academy trains Belarusian foreign intelligence operatives; the SVR is believed to have actively used Belarusian diplomatic facilities abroad as cover for its agents. President Lukashenka is regularly briefed by Russian security chiefs. The Belarusian KGB co-ordinates its operations in the West with the SVR and Russian defense intelligence GRU. Less visible but also close has been Moscow’s intelligence co-operation with Ukrainian and Kazakh security services. The FSB and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) are believed to have collaborated against NATO interests in Ukraine and abroad. Since 2000, there has been a renewed emphasis on joint operations against criminal and terrorist groups. The FSB and the Kazakh Committee of National Security (KNB) are known to have exchanged data on Islamic religious groups in Central Asia and the Middle East. The SVR is also likely to have used the KNB’s relationship with Turkish special services to spy on Ankara – suspected by Moscow of aiding Chechen separatists. Since Vladimir Putin came to power, relations between Russian and Uzbek, Turkmen and Georgian intelligence agencies are believed to have improved. Russian sources indicate that the latter three might have helped the SVR to block Chechen funds coming in from the Middle East. Putin’s ascent to power has also provided impetus for better security ties with Moldova and Azerbaijan. At the multi-lateral level, Russian intelligence has increasingly made use of the CIS institutional framework to assert its influence in the post-Soviet area. The main forum for Moscow-led security co-operation is the annual conference of the CIS intelligence chiefs convened by the FSB. The conference has a permanent coordinating secretariat based in the FSB headquarters in Moscow. The agenda of the multi-lateral consultations has markedly widened since 2000, and now includes penetration of militant Islam into the region, drug trafficking, government data protection and separatism. The FSB and its CIS counterparts have also set up a joint intelligence database that stores information on organized crime and terrorism.

IMPLICATIONS: In many CIS states, the intelligence communities are the most pro-Russian elements of the national governments and an important channel of Moscow’s influence. This is not a coincidence. Structure, recruitment and training principles of many national security services closely resemble those of the Soviet-era republican KGB directorates. However, the resources and capabilities of local KGBs during the Soviet period had been limited. So were the abilities of the newly formed intelligence agencies in the CIS to defend local regimes that in the early 1990s were fragile. Russia was willing to help with intelligence information, training and equipment; it found it relatively easy to talk to former KGB officials and used former ties and intelligence assistance as an anchor. On the Russian side, co-operation is not only interest- but also value-based. Many in the SVR and the FSB are personally committed to raising Moscow’s profile in the region. Newly independent states are viewed by the intelligence personnel as less than sovereign, and much effort has gone into defeating local political forces that are nationalist and anti-Russian. With regard to its intelligence priorities, Russia has had and is likely to retain two main objectives: combating terrorism and furthering its economic interests. Since the beginning of the second Chechen campaign in 1999, both the SVR and the FSB have used their influence to fight Islamic militants in Central Asia and clamp down on Chechen diasporas in Georgia and Azerbaijan. In 1999, when the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan invaded the Kyrgyz region of Batken, the SVR played a role in regional efforts to defeat the insurgents. The FSB and some of its CIS partners have conducted several joint operations in Chechnya, where it is highly likely that the Jordanian-born warlord Khattab was poisoned by an Arab agent run by the security service of one of the Central Asian states. At the multilateral level, Russia is increasingly working through the CIS Anti-Terrorist Centre. The ATC is headed by the FSB’s General Boris Mylnikov, and Russia pays 50% of its budget. The original plan was to use it as a think-tank, but it has gradually assumed other functions, now boasting a field office in Bishkek tasked with planning joint operations and holding anti-terrorist exercises. On the economic front, the SVR and FSB maintain close links to and promote the interests of Russia’s two leading energy companies – Gazprom and Lukoil. The Central Asian states with hydrocarbon reserves continue to rely on the Russian-owned pipeline system. Moscow earns substantial trans-shipment fees and views as a security threat local projects to seek alternative transport routes. Against this backdrop, the SVR in particular has been instrumental in Russian attempts to dominate ‘pipeline politics’ in Central Asia.

CONCLUSIONS: The strength of Russian intelligence agencies lies in their ability to exploit the common KGB heritage shared by local security officers, and the ‘insecurity complex’, as well as lack of legitimacy, of many CIS regimes. Given that, Russian intelligence agencies are likely to retain their grip on the post-Soviet states for many years to come. Moscow is the leading force behind the new CIS system of intelligence coordination, and its protégés occupy senior posts in many national security services. While this situation may somewhat change as serving security officers retire and are replaced by successors without close ties to the KGB, this is not necessarily the most probable scenario.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Denis Trifonov (BA, MSc Oxon) does research in International Relations at Lincoln College Oxford. He teaches international history and politics, and works as a Russia/CIS analyst for several political risks consultancies.