There Is A KGB Spy Museum In New York City

Photos by Jackson Krule

Alex Norcia, Vice: I Went to the Opening of a KGB Spy Museum and It Was Kind of Awesome

I, for one, welcome our new ex-Soviet overlords.

At 7:15 Thursday evening, Agne Urbaityte turned on a tiny electrical saw. She was dressed in a proper Soviet officer's uniform, and her white-haired father Julius Urbaitis—who stood silently in sunglasses, looking vaguely up to no good—watched as a piece of rope was severed and dropped to the floor for dramatic effect. It was a makeshift ribbon-cutting ceremony: Nearby, set up like a spread at a high school party from the 80s, was a table of Russian-inspired snacks (mainly puff pastries that incorporated cold eggs and smelly fish), and outside, red balloons swayed in the wind, illuminated by a string of candles placed on the sidewalk. Vladimir Lenin's face stared out the window, sternly peering at the passers-by. Inside, a man was playing the accordion beside an assortment of multicolored vodka.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The U.S. fascination in all things Soviet continues.

Hat tip Fred for this link.

Were Russian Emigrés A Valuable Asset For The KGB?

YouTube

Michael Weiss, Daily Beast: The KGB Playbook for Turning Russians Worldwide Into Agents

A KGB manual showed how valuable—and how treacherous—Russian émigrés could be. Did KGB veteran Vladimir Putin learn those lessons?

IT WAS THE TRANSPOSITION of two letters that furnished the easy excuse for dismissing the entirety of the accusation as “fake news.”

Russian diplomat Mikhail Kulagin, the story went, had been yanked from the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue owing to fears in Moscow that the American press was onto him as something other than a mere diplomat. Kulagin was about to be unmasked for his “heavy involvement in the U.S. presidential election operation,” according to a secret document about to be made public, to much fanfare and controversy. Namely, he’d been part of a complex scheme funneling cash to Russian émigrés in America as compensation for a “two-way flow of intelligence and information concerning the activities of prominent Russian oligarchs and their families.”

Read more ....

Previous Post #1: The KGB Manual For Recruiting Spies Is Revealed (December 27, 2017)
Previous Post #2: A Look At The KGB's History In The Middle East (December 28, 2017)

WNU Editor: If I may quote my father when he immigrated to Canada after living in the Soviet Union for most of his life .... "there are more Communists in Canada than they are in the Soviet Union". I am sure that some Soviet/Russian immigrants may have  actively supporting the KGB .... but from my own experience .... I would say that 99%+ would not do it willingly.

A Look At The KGB's History In The Middle East

YouTube

Michael Weiss, Daily Beast: The KGB Playbook for Infiltrating the Middle East

In 1988, the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, looked at its mistakes in the Middle East, where the CIA often had the upper hand. Putin has worked to change that.

This is the second article in a three-part series based on never-before-published training manuals for the KGB, the Soviet intelligence organization that Vladimir Putin served as an operative, and that shaped his view of the world.

As former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN earlier this month, Putin is “a great case officer,” suggesting he “knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president”—that is, the president of the United States.

THE PLAN WAS SIMPLE but audacious: On October 3, 1969, the Lebanese Air Force pilot would turn up for his scheduled training flight in a French-made Mirage III-E interceptor jet. “Upon attaining an altitude of 3,000 feet,” he was instructed, “radio the Beirut tower that you are experiencing generator trouble and your controls are malfunctioning. Then declare an emergency. Thereafter, acknowledge no radio transmissions… Four minutes after you cross the Soviet frontier, three interceptors will meet you and guide you to Baku in Azerbaijan… Should rendezvous fail, contact the base there on a frequency of 322 kilocycles…”

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The KGB did somethings right in the Middle East .... Why Islamic Terrorists Don’t Kidnap Russians (January 13, 2017).

Previous Post: The KGB Manual For Recruiting Spies Is Revealed (December 27, 2017)

The KGB Manual For Recruiting Spies Is Revealed

YouTube

Michael Weiss, Daily Beast: Revealed: The Secret KGB Manual for Recruiting Spies

The document is from the Cold War. But the material it teaches is still being used today by Vladimir Putin’s clandestine cadres.

This is the first of a three-part series based on never-before-published training manuals for the KGB, the Soviet intelligence organization that Vladimir Putin served as an operative, and that shaped his view of the world. Its veterans still make up an important part of now-Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power base. All were trained in the same dark arts, and these primers in tradecraft are essential to an understanding of the way they think and the way they operate.

U.S. intelligence operatives understand this only too well. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN earlier this month Putin is “a great case officer,” suggesting he “knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president”—that is, the president of the United States.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Michael Weiss spends a good part of his post on extrapolating from this KGB manual on how Russian intelligence may have manipulated the Trump team. Unfortunately .... he fails to mention the Clinton paid-for Russian Dossier, and how it may have also been a product of Russian intelligence to undermine the U.S. electoral system, and distract the Trump administration. This is the first of a three-part series on this KGB manual .... I will be posting the other parts when they become available. Michael Weiss has not posted the KGB document itself ....  can only hope that he does because I suspect that it is an interesting read.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Has Hired Former Russian KGB Agents To Protect Him From Assassination Attempts

The Asahi Shimbun: Ex-KGB agents hired to protect Kim Jong Un from assassins

SEOUL--North Korea has hired former KGB agents as “military advisers” to bolster protection of leader Kim Jong Un against assassination attempts by the United States and South Korea, a source said.

About 10 or so former KGB agents who once worked in a division tasked with taking down terrorists were invited to Pyongyang in February, according to the source knowledgeable about affairs in the North Korean capital.

They were asked to train Kim’s bodyguards, including how to detect possible terrorist acts beforehand and how to counter such threats when they occur.

The source said North Korean officials were especially interested in guarding against assassination attempts by the United States using some of its most advanced weapons.

Read more ....

More News On Reports That North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Has Hired Former Russian KGB Agents To Protect Him From Assassination Attempts

North Korea Is So Worried About Kim Jong Un Being Assassinated That It's Asking KGB Agents for Help -- Newsweek
Report: North Korea hired KGB spies to protect Kim Jong Un -- UPI
Kim Jong Un has reportedly hired ex-KGB bodyguards to defend him against a US assassination -- Business Insider
Asahi: N. Korea Hires Former KGB Agents as Military Advisers -- KBS

Russia To Create A New Spy Agency That Unites All Other Spy Agencies

Back to the future? After the dissolution of the KGB, its Moscow headquarters housed the Federal Security Service (FSB), which is reported to be the center of a reconstituted superagency.

RFE: KGB 2.0? Report Says Kremlin Plan Afoot For Major Security-Service Shakeup

MOSCOW -- Russia plans to create a super security agency called the Ministry of State Security (MGB), the name once given to Josef Stalin's Soviet spy apparatus before it was renamed the KGB after his death, Kommersant newspaper reports.

The business daily's September 19 story is based on anonymous sources and could not be independently verified. The report has been neither confirmed nor denied officially, and President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has declined to comment.

Speaking to RFE/RL, two leading experts on Russia's security services and a former KGB lieutenant colonel now in the opposition said variously that the reform was "entirely possible," "certainly plausible," and "very likely."

Read more ....

More News On Reports That Russia May Create A New "Super Spy Agency" 

Return of the KGB? Newspaper predicts major power ministry reforms in Russia -- RT
Russian President Vladimir Putin Reportedly Planning Reforms to Effectively Resurrect KGB -- ABC News
Vladimir Putin Reviving The KGB? Russias's State Security Could Soon Mirror Soviet-era Service -- IBTimes
Russia 'to revive the KGB' after Putin wins biggest majority -- The Telegraph
Putin forms super-spy agency just like Stalin's -- The Times

Top Secret Soviet - KGB Documents Are Made Available To The Public For The First Time

Photo: The former KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin as he looked the day he defected to the West. The Independent

Drunks Who Can't Keep Secrets: KGB's Verdict On The Cambridge Five Revealed As Top Secret Soviet Documents Are Made Available To The Public For The First Time -- Daily Mail

* According to KGB the Cambridge Five were a bunch of drunkards
* The damning verdict is revealed in the Mitrokhin Archive
* Documents have been made available for the first time today
* The file contains profiles of around 200 British KGB collaborators

Their willingness to betray their country to the Soviet Union earned them great notoriety.

But according to their KGB handlers, the Cambridge Five were a bunch of drunkards who could not be relied upon to keep a secret.

The damning assessment of the university spy ring recruited in the 1930s is revealed in the Mitrokhin Archive, a file of top secret Soviet documents being made available to the public for the first time today.

Read more ....

More News On The Mitrokhin Archive

KGB defector's cold war secrets are revealed at last -- The Guardian
KGB thought British spies were drunk or unreliable -- The Australian/The Times
The Mitrokhin archive: KGB defector's copied files reveal Soviet dismay at ‘constantly drunk’ Guy Burgess -- The Independent
Soviet defector’s trove of KGB secrets made public -- AP
Soviet defector's trove of KGB secrets released -- FOX News/AP

Is The KGB Coming Back?

Photo: Vladimir Putin in KGB uniform. (Photo from Wikipedia)

Kremlin Official Issues Death Threat In Russian Spy Scandal. Is The KGB Coming Back? -- Christian Science Monitor

The Russian spy scandal has provoked an upheaval within the country's humiliated foreign intelligence agency. Some are pushing for a recreation of Soviet-era security machinery.

In a bizarre post-script to the Russian spy scandal that resulted in the humiliating return of 10 alleged spies from the US this summer, a Kremlin official claimed today that a hit man has been dispatched to kill the double agent who betrayed a network of moles.

While a handful of Russian defectors have died in suspicious circumstances recently, some analysts believe today's death threat is just bluster to cover up an embarrassing intelligence failure.

Read more ....

My Comment: With the exception of some old communists who are still alive, no one wants the former KGB back .... including former KGB officer Vladimir Putin. But aside from the rhetoric and public announcements from this particular spy case, most Russians understand that a more professional intelligence service will probably be needed .... and from what I know there is ZERO support to have something like the KGB back in a position of authority.