Recommended by Carrie Twomey.
Classic Cold War tradecraft lured a sitting member of the Oireachtas to offer his services to a spy.
Despite his extensive counter-surveillance training, Sergey Prokopiev failed to notice the surveillance officers monitoring his activities at quarters. Officially, Prokopiev served as a counsellor at the Russian embassy on Orwell Road in Dublin, but this was a cover story.
Prokopiev was a spy: a high-ranking military intelligence officer sent to Ireland by Russia’s armed forces to operate under diplomatic cover. His mission was to recruit and handle agents, sources and assets from the worlds of politics, business and media, but also to engage in what Russians call active measures: the modern iteration of the political warfare tactics employed by the KGB during the Cold War.
At the time of his arrival in Ireland in March 2019, Prokopiev was focused on rebuilding Russia’s intelligence network on both sides of the border. He was particularly interested in establishing contacts with loyalist and republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, which had sprung to life during the Brexit negotiations between the European Union and Britain.
Despite his extensive counter-surveillance training, Sergey Prokopiev failed to notice the surveillance officers monitoring his activities at quarters. Officially, Prokopiev served as a counsellor at the Russian embassy on Orwell Road in Dublin, but this was a cover story.
Prokopiev was a spy: a high-ranking military intelligence officer sent to Ireland by Russia’s armed forces to operate under diplomatic cover. His mission was to recruit and handle agents, sources and assets from the worlds of politics, business and media, but also to engage in what Russians call active measures: the modern iteration of the political warfare tactics employed by the KGB during the Cold War.
At the time of his arrival in Ireland in March 2019, Prokopiev was focused on rebuilding Russia’s intelligence network on both sides of the border. He was particularly interested in establishing contacts with loyalist and republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, which had sprung to life during the Brexit negotiations between the European Union and Britain.
Continue reading @ Sunday Times.
TPQ the link to 'The Times' piece is 'paywalled'----if you try to open either Sunday Times links, it brings you to their 'home page'---same if you open the John'Mooney' link it takes you to a list of pieces that are 'paywalled'...But this link will work
ReplyDeleteQuillers anytime you come across an article that is 'paywalled' simply copy the URL at the top of the article that is 'paywalled' and copy it into what looks like a red search engine inarchive today press 'save' and you can read the article with out being blocked....(save simply means the last time the article was 'saved' on their server)
Heads up---archive today probably wont work on Microsoft Edge/Bing but will work on other search engines (Firefox, Opera, Safari, Brave, Pre-Search etc...)