The Russia Federal Security Service (FSB) has a burgeoning unit known as Department for Counterintelligence Operations (DKRO) that is at the heart of operations surveilling Americans in Russia.
It is the DKRO that netted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marines Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Those Russian-held American prisoners are reportedly being used as pieces in negotiations now as Russia's Vladimir Putin is continuing his so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine. Reed already was, having been returned in 2022.
Putin is a former KGB (the former Soviet Union foreign intelligence group) and a former head of the FSB, and now Putin's DKRO is a gaining a large influence in the spying operations on people in Russia, according to the report.
"The DKRO never misses an opportunity if it presents itself against the U.S., the main enemy," Russian security analyst Andrei Soldatov told the Journal. "They are the crème-de-la-crème of the FSB."
The DKRO is reportedly taking spying to the level of harassment if not involvement in a mysterious death of a U.S. diplomat's dog, surveillance of an ambassador's children, and the flattening of embassy vehicle's tires.
"They're very, very smart on the America target," former Central Intelligence Agency chief in Moscow Dan Hoffman told the Journal of the DKRO. "They've been doing this a long time. They know us extremely well.
"They do their job extremely well, they're ruthless about doing their job, and they're not constrained by any resources."
Among the Journal noted actions against Americans in Russia are installing listening devices in homes and rooms and recruiting informants at the U.S. Embassy, and honey-pot operations sending young women to lure Marines to share U.S. secrets.
The DKRO would not stake claim to such actions and all Journal requests for comment from U.S. government and Russian sources were declined.
But sources told the Journal that DKRO wants to let its targets for surveillance know they are being watched, even leaving burnt cigarette on the toilet seat or feces in unflushed toilets as a calling card as if it was out of some kind of spy movie.
One senior official from Washington even had feces left in his bag, sources told the Journal.
"Today, the FSB is incredibly powerful and unaccountable," former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev who left for exile after the invasion of Ukraine commenced. "Anyone can designate someone else as a foreign spy in order to get promoted. If you are an FSB officer and you want a quick promotion, you find some spies."
The FSB was called out directly by Putin to step up its game.
"You need to significantly improve your work," Putin told FSB leaders in December. "It is necessary to put a firm stop to the activities of foreign special services, and to promptly identify traitors, spies and diversionists."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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