Back on September 13 Russia expelled several MI6 spies who had been attempting to foment unrest in Russia. Typically, the targets of MI6 were fringe political parties and organizations and Muslims. So, when I say “fringe political parties,” an example would be the Yabloko (“apple”) party, which is aligned with Western liberal ideas. Here’s a sample of stories regarding the expulsion. Note that the expulsion came amid a “spat” about the UK wanting to strike Russia with long range missiles. Right, how could Russia object to that?
Sep 13, 2024 Russia has accused six British diplomats of spying and decided to expel them. The U.K. says the move, which it calls "completely baseless," came weeks ago and was linked to its action in May to revoke the credentials of an attaché at the Russian Embassy and limit Moscow's diplomatic activities in London, The latest East-West tensions unfolded as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ...
Sep 13, 2024 Earlier this year, British diplomat Capt Adrian Coghill was given a week to leave Russia, days after the Russian defence attaché was expelledfrom London for alleged espionage as an "undeclared ...
Sep 13, 2024 The very public expulsion by Russia of six British diplomats in Moscow, accused of involvement in spying and sabotage, is a way for the Kremlin to punish London.
Sep 13, 2024 David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters. Russia's FSB security service said on Friday it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow whose actions it said showed signs of spying and ...
CIA/MI6 has long targeted the three Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia for its anti-Russian/Soviet operations, much as it targeted western Ukraine. Russo-phobia seems to be part of the gene pool. Typical operations involved sending émigré agents back to their homelands as spies. They were generally rounded up by the KGB, quite efficiently. You can read about this—as well as post Cold War developments up to the present—in this article. The article makes clear that the Baltics—and, prominently, Estonia—became a hotbed of anti-Russian intel activity after the Cold War:
While the article appears to focus on the CIA, you’ll see that MI6 was also involved going all the way back to 1949. Here’s a sample summary of Cold War ops:
In 1949, with the creation of a program called REDSOX, the US attempted to pierce Soviet borderlands. The CIA planned to send agents, consisting of former exiles, into Soviet-controlled territory. They would eventually provide intelligence to Washington and potentially help to support nationalist movements in these republics. Recently declassified CIA files have shed light on various technical aspects of how the agency planned to aid the national partisan movements (known as the Forest Brothers) (CIA Citation1951). One such file, for instance, details a plan to air-drop operational equipment, including foreign currency (rubles) into the hands of CIA’s developed assets in Latvia (CIA Citation1956).
The CIA’s ambitions regarding the outcomes of covert actions appear to have been quite high. As Falkov (Citation2023, 45) underscores in his work, before their mission,
the agents had been told that they were to consider themselves not as just ‘intelligence sources,’ but rather as ‘operational personnel’ undertaking a mission for the liberation of their homeland and providing assistance to the U.S. government in its fight against communism by ‘establishing support points and operating possibilities for others who would follow.’
Indeed, one of the CIA’s memos in connection to intended covert operations in Lithuania noted: ‘The policy of the United States is to seek the eventual liberation of Lithuania by peaceful means. The objectives set forth above constitute covert implementation of this policy’ (CIA Citation1954).
As it later turned out, however, the CIA’s attempts to infiltrate the Baltics were completely thwarted by the Soviets. According to Mingailė Jurkutė, a historian who studied CIA intelligence activities in the Baltics from 1947 to 1953, the CIA missions were by no means a success story. Rather, she points out, it was a tale of victory by Soviet counterintelligence (Balčiūnas Citation2020). The Soviets managed to run several fictitious underground movements, thus luring CIA-controlled agents into various traps (Falkov Citation2023). As a result, many of the operations were compromised even before they could properly commence.
In sum, through the program REDSOX, the CIA attempted to send at least 12 agents to the occupied Baltic states and at least 85 agents to the USSR, almost none of whom survived (Juurvee Citation2022). British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) attempts met a similar fate: the émigrés sent back into their homelands were swiftly rounded up by the local authorities (Smith Citation2022, 73). Even though ‘superficially the Baltic states seemed an ideal base for anti-communist activities’ (Lucas Citation2013, 102), neither Washington nor London achieved measurable results in their covert activities. Eventually, such operations would peter out (Prados Citation2006).
Coincidentally or not, within a week of the expulsion of British “diplomats” from Russia, a missile launch on a munitions storage site in the Leningrad defense district of Russia was launched. Repeated reports claim that the strike was coordinated from Estonia. MI6 was quick to assess the damage. This would seem to invite retaliation from Russia, but Russian retaliation often comes in asymmetric fashion.
Armchair Warlord has offered an assessment of the missile strike that takes various factors into account—including long range implications for the Baltics:
Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW
This bears some elaboration.
I pointed out a while ago re: the Kursk incursion that Ukraine is on the brink of the abyss. They're staring at national collapse. And the only way they win the war - the only way they have ever been able to win - is through US intervention.
Here's the thing. In the long term the Baltics (particularly Estonia, which has a strategic position near St. Petersburg) are in the boat with Ukraine. Their extraordinarily antagonistic conduct over the last three years has made it quite likely that their erasure from the map of Eastern Europe at the earliest convenient opportunity has made it into Russian strategic policy. And the Russian Army's road to Talinn, Riga, and Vilnius runs through Kiev. For the Baltic States, like no other countries in Europe, Ukrainian victory - which requires NATO to intervene spearheaded by the United States - is an existential matter. Even if they remain independent, an ascendant Russia will inevitably pull the Baltics back into its orbit for simple economic and strategic reasons.
For the Baltics to survive - at least in their current anti-Russian ethnonationalist format - Russia must lose. They can only exist alongside a weak Russia. Otherwise moderates in favor of coexistence and economic development will inevitably oust the ethnonationalists at some point and (Shock! Horror!) grant equal rights to ethnic Russians and stop commemorating the SS or something.
Yes, much like the Ukrainians, the Baltics have a thing about SS regalia. During WW2 they were also very cooperative with the Final Solution.
Ergo why we've seen multiple, insane provocations coming out of the Baltics, stuff that absolutely would give the Russians a casus belli. Ukraine's losing and they desperately need to change the game to create conditions under which it can win - not as a matter of Great Game strategy or neoliberal disdain for Russia, but as a matter of national existence.
This is also, by the way, why Russia isn't going to go charging into Estonia or something. As I pointed out earlier, they're winning the Ukrainian War and winning it handily at this point. The existing game suits them just fine and they'd be stupid to seek to change it unless things become intolerable - even if that means ignoring acts of war from third countries.
(Illustration - the Soviet 1944 Baltic Offensive)
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Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW
Sep 19
With all that being said my assessment of the consequences of this has not changed: Russia will quietly snarl at NATO and provocations will cease for a long time. The loss of some contingency ammo facing the Baltics will not affect the war.
"Sound and fury, signifying nothing." x.com/ArmchairW/stat…
Great coverage, Mark. This is a very helpful piece to know for the big picture.