Earlier today Vanya Gaberova, Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, and Katrin Ivanova, were found guilty at the Old Bailey in one of the largest and complex Russian spy operations in the UK
This is a typical modern-day Kremlin undercover operation.
Moscow’s spy agencies are increasingly using eastern European nationals who have the ideal cover for operations in the UK. There has been for some time a deep suspicion in the intelligence world that Russia will be also using criminal networks from Bulgaria and elsewhere.
British society is well-used to foreign accents so they will not stick out as out of the ordinary – and their passports offer them plausibility and boost their ability to move about Europe. Motivation was perhaps not ideological but maybe financial and that is often a weakness because they may have lacked commitment.
Their Kremlin paymasters are well-beyond caring about losing them as assets, however.
Russia will discard them easily and move on. They almost certainly have other assets in the UK and the ones we hear about are not likely to be from their upper- echelons.
We may not know how much training this gang received, but they got caught… so these are not highly-trained operatives, it seems. It is very likely this will not be the last time Eastern Europeans who are not Russians will be employed on Kremlin espionage missions.
It is believed most, if not all, of Russia’s intelligence officers were booted out of the country in the last few years. There may be highly trained officers on deep cover, long-term stays in the UK called ‘illegals’ who are embedded in our society.
They would not be wasted on a common spy mission, such as this. They would be activated in times of pre-war sabotage, surveillance or perhaps assassinations.
So Russia, it would appear, has no real control or agent handlers in the UK left. It means increasingly they will use Eastern European criminal gangs who will do a job for money and be controlled from a great distance.
This hugely boosts the chance of them not using tradecraft, not knowing any tradecraft – such as counter surveillance – and they will end up being caught. This was a blip on Putin’s radar and he and his former KGB cronies may even enjoy the alarm it has caused here.
It will not be the last time as the grey zone conflict between Russia and the UK is fought in the shadows.