Memoirs by former intelligence officers appear from time to time. The problem is often that intelligence veterans must submit their manuscripts to extensive review before publication, and authors themselves tend to rely on material already available from public sources. In that respect, books by Soviet and Russian intelligence defectors are particularly interesting, since they do not have to seek permission from their former employers and generally do not try to conceal much, quite the opposite.

Those thoughts came to mind while reading the book under discussion. Its author is Sean Wiswesser, a longtime officer with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency who worked primarily on Russia and the former Soviet Union during his operational career.

In his book "Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin's Secret War" (Sean M. Wiswesser, 2026), he provides an overview of the activities and structure of Russia's intelligence and security services. The title is certainly designed to attract readers and buyers. Many will likely find it useful. Others may consider it somewhat thin, but there are still a few worthwhile observations to highlight. Wiswesser has also published a newer book on Russian intelligence that I have not yet read.

Wiswesser notes that the active measures and intelligence operations of Russia's security services have succeeded in manipulating public opinion around the world. The 2008 war in Georgia and the events in Crimea and Donbas in 2014 demonstrated this. Russian influence operations also achieved some success during interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where the primary objective was to undermine confidence in the electoral system.

Russia's security services have existed since the time of Ivan the Terrible and have always wielded enormous influence in society. Today, it can be argued that the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, effectively controls much of Russian society. The FSB has also retained part of the foreign intelligence role carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which succeeded the KGB's First Chief Directorate, particularly in the so-called near abroad.

For a complete picture, we should also include military intelligence, commonly known as the GRU, the intelligence directorate of the Russian General Staff, which is involved in cyber operations and satellite intelligence.

The FSB has been shaped into a structure focused on pressure and surveillance, and it also monitors other security services. Its largest and most influential component is reportedly counterintelligence, the Third Directorate. All communications in Russia, including data communications, fall under FSB control. The service's power and prestige attract many people seeking influence and status, much as a flame attracts moths.

During the Soviet era, many sought careers in the KGB for precisely these reasons, viewing it as the ultimate guarantee of personal influence. Vladimir Putin himself, a street tough from Leningrad in his youth, reportedly volunteered for service, though he was accepted only later because the KGB did not recruit personnel through unsolicited applications.

The KGB's prestige declined after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and interest in joining fell sharply. That changed when Vladimir Putin came to power. The rise of the FSB expanded recruitment opportunities, and there is reportedly no shortage of applicants.

Wiswesser argues that corruption and nepotism remain persistent problems within the FSB and Russian security services in general. Corruption affects workplace relationships, career advancement, and reporting practices, as personnel try to tell superiors what they want to hear. Nepotism further contributes to the problem because recruitment often involves relatives and personal connections.

The FSB also includes operational units that have been closely involved in planning the war against Ukraine. In the long run, this may prove dangerous for the organization. If the question of responsibility for launching the war eventually arises, some highly decorated officials could find themselves facing accountability.

One longstanding problem for Russian intelligence services, both during the Cold War and afterward, has been integrating illegal agents into Western societies. One difficulty was that agents posing as foreigners often looked unmistakably Russian. Moreover, many illegals were uncovered and neutralized after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

When opportunities for Russian citizens to move abroad expanded during the 1990s, Russian foreign intelligence gained a new opportunity. It began making use of Russians with dual citizenship living in other countries. This even produced a new category, the special agent-illegal. Such operatives did not need to conceal their Russian origins and benefited from having no links to Russian embassies or consulates. Their weakness was a lack of professional training, which made them more vulnerable to detection.

Wiswesser notes that Russian security services have several distinctive characteristics, some of them outright criminal and beyond the boundaries of legality and ethics. One example is assassination, sometimes referred to as "wet work." Considerable attention is also devoted to the use of double agents, making continuous vetting of recruited sources a necessity for Western intelligence services.

As technology has made it more difficult to send intelligence officers abroad and maintain long-term agents, Russian services increasingly rely on one-time and unstable sources. Given modern capabilities for verifying a person's past and present, including through social media, sending an illegal agent abroad has become almost pointless.

More valuable are the so-called useful idiots who can still be found across Western countries and who are often motivated by personal ego. Russian intelligence services are also placing increasing emphasis on hybrid methods.

Recruitment attempts, however, have not disappeared. Tourists can be lured into a trap while visiting Russia and then offered a way out in exchange for cooperation. Diplomats may also be compromised through various means, including the classic honey trap involving members of the opposite sex. Russia had, and may still have, a special institution known as State School No. 4 in Kazan, where so-called swallows, female officers tasked with seducing foreign targets and gathering compromising material, were trained.

In summary, Wiswesser's conclusion is persuasive: Russian intelligence activity in the West has become far more dangerous. It increasingly targets infrastructure and critical services while also spreading disinformation to destabilize societies, often with the unintended assistance of local politicians. To fully understand the latest methods and tactics of Russian intelligence, however, another book may already be needed.

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