For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used his intelligence, including the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU), to try and understand Europe — what they are thinking, how they would react to a crisis of war. The failure of Russia’s intelligence to predict Ukraine’s commitment to defending itself and Europe’s response of solidarity shows their failures.
But what role do the Russian intelligence services play in modern warfare? And what does their history and growth under Putin tell us about the way the Kremlin works today?
In this episode of our podcast "Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World," co-produced with Message Heard, we speak to Michael Weiss, a journalist, author, and expert on Russia’s intelligence services, to discover more about the successes and failures of covert warfare in Ukraine, and how it has changed the outcome of the war.
