Putin's Implacable Enemy: My Counterterrorism Magazine Piece On Senator John McCain And Vladimir Putin

Counterterrorism magazine published my piece on the late John McCain and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. You can read the pages below or the below text:

Putin’s Implacable Enemy: Senator John McCain Looked Into Vladimir Putin’s Eyes And Saw Three Letter: a K, a G, and a B

By Paul Davis

With the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been vilified by nearly the entire world.

This has not always been so, as many within and without Russia once believed that Putin was a welcomed change from the inept previous Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin. In the February 2000 Republican presidential debate, Texas Governor George W. Bush stated the jury was still out on Putin, noting that not enough was known about the Russian leader.

Senator John S. McCain (R-Az) disagreed.

“We know that he was an apparatchik. We know that he was a member of the KGB,” McCain countered. “We know that he came to power because of the military brutality in Chechnya. I’m very concerned about Mr. Putin.”

Senator McCain would go on to become Putin’s most persistent American critic.

Valdimire Putin was a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB and served in Communist East Germany during the Cold War. He resigned from the KGB in 1991 and entered politics in Saint Petersburg. Russian journalist Masha Gessen states in her book on Putin, “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” that Putin remained a reserve KGB officer and was probably a covert operator for the Soviet intelligence agency. He was later promoted to colonel in the KGB.

Putin moved to Moscow and became an assistant to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. He went on to serve as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, and in 1999 became the prime minister under Yeltsin. He became the acting president after Yeltsin resigned and was elected to be president in 2000.

Putin’s critics have accused him of using GRU (military intelligence) “wet work” murder squads to kill and critically injury Russian critics residing in the West via radiation poisoning. His critics also accuse the Russian leader of leading institutional corruption in Russia and amassing a personal illicit fortune worth billions.

Putin critics believe that Putin wants to restore Russia to the country’s former “glory” as a world power. Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” 

President Bush met Putin in 2001 and famously said, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

In the presidential debate in October of 2008, while debating his Democratic opponent, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, McCain mentioned President Bush’s statement about Putin. He then added, “I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.”

McCain went on to say that Putin had repressed liberties in Georgia and issued a warning about Ukraine. He said Ukraine was in Putin’s sights.

McCain lost the election to Obama and the new president and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared a “reset” in dealing with Russia. That effort ended with Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his first attack of Ukraine in 2014.

The son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals, John S. McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and entered flight training in 1958. An A-4 Skyhawk pilot, McCain flew combat sorties against North Vietnam in 1967. On July 29, 1967, stray voltage from a mobile engine starter triggered a Zuni rocket to launch from an F-4 waiting for takeoff on the deck of the USS Forrestal. The rocket struck the belly fuel tank of McCain’s aircraft, killing Airman Thomas D. Ott. McCain jumped out of his cockpit and into a fire. A bomb exploded, which sent him flying about ten feet and killed a number of sailors. McCain suffered from burns and shrapnel wounds

It took the ship’s damage control teams 24 hours to contain the fire, which killed 134 Sailors, injured 161, and destroyed 21 aircraft. As the Forrestal headed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for repairs, McCain and other pilots from his squadron volunteered to transfer to VA-163 on the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany.

According to the Naval History & Heritage Command, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on 26 October 1967, but the shootdown was not the result of poor airmanship.

“Rather, it resulted from a willingness of McCain to take a calculated risk to destroy an important target: the Hanoi thermal power plant,” the Navy history command wrote. “The day before, he pleaded with the squadron operations officer to put him on the roster for the large Alpha strike scheduled the next day. Four Navy squadrons participated in the raid. It was McCain’s twenty-third mission and his first attack on Hanoi. The strike force was tracked by North Vietnamese radars as it went feet dry, and soon McCain could see smoke plumes from SA-2 launches. At the time of his shootdown, McCain’s aircraft was at 3,500 feet. He had received a good warning tone, indicating that a missile was tracking him, but he felt he had time to drop his bombs on the target next to a small lake and then outmaneuver the missile. He managed to release his bomb load just before the missile impacted.

“The missile shattered one of the wings of McCain’s A-4, forcing him to bailout upside down at high speed. The force of the ejection broke his right leg, his right arm in three places, his left arm, tore his helmet off, and knocked him unconscious. He nearly died when he descended into a lake in the middle of Hanoi. He made it to the surface and was bayoneted by an angry mob of North Vietnamese. He was sent to Hoa Lo prison (the Hanoi Hilton). He was interrogated for four days before his captors brought him to a hospital after learning that his father was a four-star admiral and the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command.”

McCain was 31 years old when he became a prisoner. Tortured and often kept in solitary confinement, McCain was a Prisoner of War from 26 October 1967–14 March 1973: 

Following his release, McCain spent five months recuperating and receiving medical treatment. He then attended the National War College and became the commanding officer of VA-174, In 1979, he served as the Navy’s Office of Legislative Liaison in the Senate. Captain McCain retired from the Navy in 1981. His decorations include the Silver Star Medal, the Legion of Merit with Combat ‘V’ and one gold star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat ‘V’ and two gold stars, and the Purple Heart Medal with one gold star.

McCain was elected to the House in 1983 and the Senate in 1987. He ran unsuccessfully for President in 2008.

In 2011, Vladimir Putin spoke for four and a half hours on Russian TV and took calls from viewers. He was asked about McCain.

“He has a lot of blood of peaceful civilians on his hands,” Putin said of McCain, referring to McCain’s background as a combat pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. “Mr. McCain was captured in Vietnam, and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years. Anyone would go nuts.”

McCain responded to Putin calling him “nuts” with a tweet: “Dear Vlad, is it something I said?”

In 2014, Putin ordered sanctions against the U.S. Senator.

“He sanctioned me, which means no spring break in Siberia,” McCain joked to a TV talk show host. “Russia is a gas station run by a mafia that is masquerading as a country.”

In 2015, returning from a visit to Ukraine, McCain said, “Russia is kleptocracy. It’s corruption. It’s a nation that’s really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important.”            

Senator McCain passed away on 25 August 2018 from glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. Russian media reported McCain’s death as the passing of “an implacable enemy of Russia.”

The late senator was certainly an implacable enemy of Vladimir Putin.

Senator-John-McCain-with-sailors-aboard-USS-John-S-McCain-2017

“John McCain was right: Vladimir Putin is a thug. He saw KGB in Putin’s eyes, and that’s exactly what the rest of the world is seeing now,” the McCain Institute at Arizona State University noted in a released statement. “Putin’s actions demonstrate the grave dangers of authoritarianism and underscore the need for free nations to stand firm in defense of democracy.

“Flexing unchecked power, Putin’s belligerence toward Ukraine is proving the case we’ve been making for so long – that democracy is the best way to unify society, secure peace and create broad prosperity. Accordingly, Western nations are uniting in a reaffirmation of their commitment to democratic principles, a goal that has eluded presidents since the end of the Cold War. Ultimately, the weight of authoritarianism is its biggest flaw. It crushes opportunity and forces people into bondage. Putin’s power grab in Ukraine represents a watershed moment in shifting the global balance of power away from authoritarianism and toward freedom.”

About the Author

Paul Davis is a longtime contributor to the Journal. He writes the IACSP Threatcon column.

Is Russia Paying The Taliban Bounties To Kill U.S. troops?: Until Verified, Can The United States Negotiate Counterterrorism With Putin, A Cold-Blooded KGB Killer?

Washington Times columnist Daniel N. Hoffman, a retired CIA officer, offers a column on the reports that Russia is paying a bounty on American troops in Afghanistan.

In 2018, Gen. John Nicholson, then the commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan, issued a stark warning about Russia’s “destabilizing activity” in Afghanistan.

Russian forces, the general charged, were conducting training exercises on the Afghan border with Tajikistan and purposely leaving some of their equipment, including night-vision goggles and small arms, behind for Taliban forces battling U.S. and coalition troops and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

For years, Russia has provided training and financial assistance to Taliban fighters, and in September 2019 hosted members of the Taliban for peace talks in Moscow. And now we have learned — based on tactical intelligence obtained from captured Taliban militants — that KGB operative-in-the-Kremlin Vladimir Putin may have authorized the Russian military intelligence service, known as the GRU, to pay “bounties” to Taliban fighters who kill U.S. troops.

If there is one thing I learned during the three years serving in war zones, it’s that captured fighters can be a valuable source of intelligence, but often that they seek as much to influence as to inform their captors.

The threshold for sharing so-called duty to warn intelligence, however, is understandably very low, and the U.S. intelligence community immediately disseminated the finding to U.S. and coalition forces in harm’s way — even before confirming its veracity.

But the threshold for President Trump and top policymakers is much higher, particularly when it comes to such actions as confronting Mr. Putin, expelling Russian officials or piling more sanctions on the Kremlin. U.S. analysts would need to collect far more additional intelligence to issue a judgment with a high enough level of confidence to justify action. The leak of the intelligence, which the White House and Pentagon have rightly deplored, will likely impede the effort to make a considered, proportionate response.

During this delicate trust-but-verify stage, the intelligence community might have wanted to give the president a heads-up about the findings, if only so he would not be blindsided if a coalition ally such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called to express appreciation for the warning.

Intelligence is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where some of the pieces are missing, and others come from entirely different puzzles. Presidential briefers and their bosses must decide when the contours of the jigsaw puzzle are sufficiently clear so that the president can begin considering policy options. 

Russia, remember, has invaded and occupied Georgia; was a co-conspirator in Syria’s and Iran’s attacks on civilians in Syria; poisoned former Russian military intelligence officer Sergey Skripal with a chemical nerve agent; invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea; and interfered in U.S. and European elections.

A Taliban bounty plot, then, would be completely consistent with Mr. Putin’s cloak-and-dagger approach to tactics and strategy. 

But however odious, a bounty plan would not have the throw-weight to turn the tide of the war in the Taliban’s favor.  

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/16/is-russia-paying-the-taliban-bounties-to-kill-us-t/

The Skripal Files: The Life And Near Death Of A Russian Spy

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a review in the Washington Times of Mark Urban’s The Skripal Files. 

Speaking to reporters in December 2010, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that his spy agencies had assassination squads that targeted defectors. But he voiced an ominous warning. “Whatever thirty pieces of silver those people may have gotten, they will stick in their throat.”

Despite his shortcomings as a decent human, give Mr. Putin credit: He carries out his threats. Any person unfortunate enough to cross him is a step removed from the grave.

The civilized world was shocked in March when a defected Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, were stricken with a mysterious poison in the quiet British town of Salisbury. They were in critical condition for weeks but survived. Scientific tests identified the poison involved as Novichok, developed by Russia for germ warfare. It had been smeared on the door knob of the Skripal home.

The attack matched earlier Russian murder operations, notably the poisoning death of defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

Mr. Skripal, a onetime Red Army airborne colonel, had shifted to the GRU, the military’s intelligence arm. Disillusioned with the Communist regime, he tried to resign, but was refused. (As Mr. Putin himself once said, “There is no such thing as an ex-KGB man.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/21/book-review-the-skripal-files-by-mark-urban/  

Frederick Forsyth: The Strange Case Of the Russian Spies

Frederick Forsyth, author of the classic thriller The Day of the Jackal and the memoir The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, in his column in the British newspaper the Express offers his take on the suspected GRU agents who allegedly attempted to murder a former Russian GRU officer in London

We all believe in giving credit where it is due and there are two officers in the London Met who deserve a lot of it. It seems this duo have a very special talent: the capacity to recognize a face if they have ever seen it once before. 

Novichok suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov have admitted that they were in Salisbury because their friends had been telling them for a long time to go and visit the 'wonderful town'.

Since the Moscow-directed attacks with novichok nerve agent in Salisbury these four eyes have been scanning thousands of hours of CCTV tapes going back months. Mostly they concentrated on the weeks before the attacks and the days immediately after. And finally they got ’em. 

I mean of course the two GRU agents whose faces and passport details have been exposed far and wide, along with the details of their journeys from Moscow to Salisbury and back.

Frederick Forsyth in his column also weighs in on one aspect of Bob Woodward’s new book on President Trump.

… One suspects we have all noticed the news from Washington about the devastating book, Fear, by ace investigative journo Bob Woodward – he of Watergate fame – about what he calls the Crazytown in the White House. One of his revelations is that Donald Trump allegedly called for the targeted “termination” of Syrian tyrant Bashar al Assad. This is held up as a terrible thing to suggest.

Just hold the phone a second. The US does actually have a “kill list” of names of those who may be “whacked” without arrest or trial. These terminations are usually of terrorist chiefs in isolated buildings by a drone overhead and make a short paragraph on the inside pages of our papers. But occasionally the US gets up close and personal.

Osama bin Laden received the attention of a team of US Navy Seals in the bedroom of his villa deep inside Pakistan which just happens to be a sovereign state. And for the record, Assad with his chemical bomb attacks on women and children has killed more innocent humans than Osama bin Laden. So..?

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/frederick-forsyth/1017408/russia-novichok-sergei-skripal-salisbury-comment 

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Frederick Forsyth via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/09/on-crime-thrillers-frederick-forsyth.html 

Frederick Forsyth: Putin Is Full Of Bluff But Russia Is Weak

Frederick Forsyth, the author of the classic thriller, The Day of the Jackal and The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, offers his take on Putin and Russia’s military and intelligence capabilities in his column in the British newspaper, the Express.

Research into my new novel reveals that the globe-wide expulsions of Russian spies after the Skripal affair has damaged Moscow’s espionage network far more seriously than we at first thought.

Our counter-spooks chose well when they advised the Prime Minister whom to chuck out. Entire networks have been crippled and will not be easily or quickly reestablished.

And this has not been just in the UK. We also advised foreign governments pretty shrewdly as well.

With our usual self-deprecation we tend to prevent the British people knowing just how good our own services really are and how they are respected by our friends and allies.

… Vladimir Putin postures and threatens but the real state of his armed forces is a fraction of what he claims. Much is run down, out of date, obsolescent.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/frederick-forsyth/951954/russia-uk-politics-putin-moscow-spy-scripal-espionage-network 

You can also read my Washington Times piece on the history of Russian assassinations via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2018/04/from-russia-with-love-my-washington.html  

Ignatius: Time for Putin Payback

It was no surprise that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was reelected for another six years, as there is no doubt that the election was truly rigged.

With the brazen attempted nerve agent murder of a former GRU colonel and defector in the United Kingdom and other outrageous acts around the world, the former KGB officer and Russian president is due for a bit of payback, says Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (seen in the below photo), author of The Quantum Spy and other fine spy thrillers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told NBC's Megyn Kelly this month that in using power, you "must be ready to go all the way to achieve the goals." Now, it seems, Putin has gone all the way too far.

Putin's aggressive use of covert action to settle scores hit an international tripwire after the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the quiet British cathedral town of Salisbury. An outraged Britain was joined Thursday by France, Germany and America in condemning the murderous use of the banned Soviet-era toxin known as Novichok.

A joint statement denounced the attack as "the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War" and called it "a breach of international law" that comes "against the background of a pattern of earlier irresponsible Russian behavior." That strong language warrants action by NATO and the U.N..

The Trump administration, after a year of mealy-mouthed, temporizing statements, also announced sanctions Thursday against Russia's "malicious cyberattacks." The sanctions, targeting five Russian organizations and 19 people, will have little practical effect beyond those already in place. What matters is that President Trump finally seems to have ended his dubious defense of Putin. "It certainly looks like the Russians were behind it," he said of the poisoning. "We're taking it very seriously."

So how can the U.S. and its closest allies alter Putin's behavior, if they're truly serious about holding Russia to account? The answer, say several former senior CIA officials, is to use America's network of alliances to put Russia under strain. Putin has been playing a weak hand well, but the high cards remain in Western hands.

Russia's greatest vulnerability is its dependence on sales of oil and gas. Here, the U.S. is uniquely positioned for payback.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.arcamax.com/politics/mod/davidignatius/s-2059893 

Note: My Q&A with David Ignatius will appear in the upcoming issue of Counterterrorism magazine. 

The Vengeance Of Vladimir Putin Knows No Bounds, Says Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth, a columnist for the British newspaper the Express and the author of The Day of Jackal and other classic thrillers, weighs in on the attempted assassination of a former GRU defector and his daughter in the United Kingdom.

There are three things we should all be very clear about regarding the events in Salisbury last Sunday. The first is that the attempt to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter was a carefully planned contracted hit. 

The second is that the level of technology and planning involved mean it could have derived only from the resources of a nation state.

           

And the only possibly nation state is Russia.

The third thing is that inside Russia no one would dare for one moment undertake such a contract killing without the personal sanction of the man at the very top: Vladimir Putin.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/frederick-forsyth/929448/Vladimir-Putin-vengeance-knows-no-bounds-FREDERICK-FORSYTH

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Frederick Forsyth via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/09/on-crime-thrillers-frederick-forsyth.html 

You can learn more about Frederick Forsyth via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/11/the-amazing-life-of-fredrick-forsyth.html  

'Traitors Always End In A Bad Way. Usually From Drugs In The Street': How Ex-KGB Chief Putin Hinted At The Way Russia Deals With Spies Amid Claims He Would Never Have Forgiven 'Poisoned' Double Agent

Mark Duell at the Daily Mail offers a piece on Russian dictator Putin and the attack on a former Russian spy in the Untied Kingdom.

Russian president Vladimir Putin once hinted at how his country deals with spies by insisting that 'traitors always end in a bad way'.

The former KGB chief's words are all the more chilling as fears build over a poison plot in Wiltshire against Sergei Skripal, a Russian colonel who spied for MI6.

Mr Skripal, 66, was accused of working for MI6 over several years, in particular disclosing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe.

Russian president Vladimir Putin once (left) said 'traitors always end in a bad way'. Fears are building over a poison plot in Wiltshire against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal (right)

Among the Russian agents exposed was the red-haired 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman, and Mr Putin said at the time: 'It is a result of betrayal.

'Traitors always end in a bad way. Usually from a drinking habit, or from drugs, right in the street.'

Mr Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security prison in 2006, before being freed in a 2010 deal which saw ten Russian sleeper agents expelled from the US.

Mr Skripal retired from military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU. He went on to work at the Foreign Ministry until 2003.

He was arrested in 2004 in Moscow and admitted he was recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and had provided information about GRU agents in Europe, for which he was paid more than $100,000.

Mr Skripal was one of four agents pardoned and released by Moscow in what was said at the time to be the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch video clips via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5467273/Ex-KGB-chief-Putin-hinted-way-Russia-deals-spies.html 

Putin And Political Murder: Orders To Kill

Veteran journalist and author Joseph Goulden offers a review in the Washington Times of Amy Knight’s Orders To Kill.

A report that has circulated in world intelligence circles for years has finally surfaced publicly in a book by an author who The New York Times has called “the West’s foremost scholar” on the KGB — that Russian strongman (and former KGB officer) Vladimir Putin is a pedophile with a preference for young boys.

The allegation is contained “Orders to Kill,” Amy Knight’s book, which is a richly detailed account of the murders of multiple Putin foes over the years, including one brazen assassination of a would-be “reformer” literally in the shadow of the Kremlin. Although evidence strongly points to President Putin as responsible for many of the killings, “Putin is never seen holding a smoking gun,” as Ms. Knight writes.

One of the murders she analyzes is the death (by polonium poisoning) of Alexander Litvinenko, one-time fellow KGB officer and friend of Mr. Putin. The two had a falling out when Litvinenko gave Mr. Putin a scathing report on corruption within the government and the FSB (successor agency to the KGB). He was also appalled by Mr. Putin’s harsh conduct against dissidents in Chechnya.

For self-preservation, Litvinenko fled to London, where he became close to another Putin enemy, Boris Berezovsky. He also became an asset of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence service.

Litvinenko died an agonizing death in 2006 after someone slipped polonium into his cup of tea in a London cafe. (One source of the rare drug is a KGB lab.)

According to Ms. Knight’s account, Litvinenko “sealed his fate” with a 2006 article in the Chechen Press in which he described a “bizarre incident” outside the Kremlin. Mr. Putin chatted with a group of tourists, “then went over to a small boy, lifted up his T-shirt, and kissed him on the stomach.”

Litvinenko wrote that “nobody can understand why the Russian president did such a strange thing.” As Ms. Knight writes, Litvinenko “went on to explain that Mr. Putin had been known by KGB insiders to have been a pedophile and that there were secret tapes he destroyed once became head of the FSB showing him having sex with underage boys.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/15/book-review-orders-to-kill-by-amy-knight/ 

No One Ever Truly Retires From Russian Intelligence

Retired Lt Colonel Ralph Peters, who served a U.S. Army intelligence officer, offers his take in his column at the New York Post on the so-called “retired” Russian intelligence officer who attended a meeting with President Trump’s son 

Of all the creatures rumored to roam the earth, we can be certain that three do not exist: unicorns, fire-breathing dragons and “former” Russian intelligence agents. Moscow’s security services are like the mob: Once you’re in, you’re in for life. Whether the “former” spy or hit man is doing billion-dollar deals through Cypriot banks or running a tanning parlor in Murmansk, when the capo di capo calls, the game’s back on.

We can’t take the measure of Russians by applying American rules. Here, when you leave an intelligence agency, you leave your access and duties completely behind you (unless you go to work for a Beltway Bandit, in which case there’s a record of your employment). When I retired from US Army Military Intelligence, I was “read off” and could not be tapped for classified work any longer, unless I were formally rehired and processed for a renewed security clearance.

We also have robust firewalls between intelligence agencies, the rest of government, the private sector, the media, NGOs and so forth. In Russia, there are no firewalls. You can be a businessman, a propagandist, a human-rights lawyer (I love that one) and a spy simultaneously. You can be a billionaire cruising the Greek islands on your mega-yacht, but if Putin’s dogsbody rings your cell with a task, vacation’s over.

Russia is, in the end, Putin Incorporated.

But when we know that a Russian has formally worked as a “former counterintelligence agent” — as we learned Friday about an additional person present at the now-famous meeting last year between Trump family members and Russians promising dirt on Mrs. Clinton — we can mentally drop that word “former.”

And to claim that a meeting with the Russian equivalent of a mob lawyer and a “former” Russian counterintelligence officer is business-as-usual for any American political campaign is utterly untrue.

(Yes, the Clintons have had more ugly connections than there are rats in Manhattan. But shabby as they are, the Clintons never sought campaign collusion with Russian intelligence agents. The Clintons prefer being bought over being fooled.)

There are no good guys on this political landscape. But as we go forward, let’s remember who the real bad guys are: the Russians. Not the Ukrainians, who are fighting for democracy and survival while under attack by Putin. Not journalists, who are doing their work as foreseen by the First Amendment. And certainly not the special counsel, who embodies our core belief in justice for all.

The bad guys are the Russians, who have tried, with unprecedented audacity, immense resources and breathtaking cynicism, to subvert the fundamental tool of our self-government, our elections.

And a Russian spy once means a Russian spy forever.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2017/07/14/no-one-ever-truly-retires-from-russian-intelligence/ 

Note: The top photo is of Putin as a KGB officer. The middle photo is of Ralph Peters and the last photo is of Putin today.

Ralph Peters: Vladimir Putin Will Always Be America's Enemy

Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army Lt Colonel and author, offers his take on Russia's Vladimir Putin in a column in the New York Post.

Vladimir Putin is our enemy. Not because we want him to be, but because resentment and hatred of the United States is central to his being. Russia’s president yearns to do us harm.

He blames us for the Soviet Union’s self-wrought collapse. He blames us for Russian stagnation. He blames us for the derelict lot of his drunken, diseased country. And he wants revenge.

Putin has five strategic goals: He wants international sanctions lifted, Europe divided and NATO destroyed. He seeks to restore the empire of the czars. And he wants to humiliate the United States.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2016/12/11/vladimir-putin-will-always-be-americas-enemy/

You can also read an earlier post via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/vladimir-putin-godfather-of-mafia-clan.html

Frederick Forsyth's Wry Russian Spy Story

I'm a huge admirer of British thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, and, so it seems, the Russian spooks are as well.

In Frederick Forsyth's column in the British newspaper the Express, he wrote the below:

Forgive an old codger a wry story... two weeks ago Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visited a huge office block at a place called Yazenevo outside Moscow.

This is the home of the SVR, the Russian spy service, formerly the First Chief Directorate of the old KGB, broken up by Mikhail Gorbachev 25 years ago. He was there to present an award to the outgoing director, welcome in the new one and make a stunning announcement: he intends to re-create the KGB.

He was speaking in the seventh-floor library and on TV. Clearly visible over his shoulder was the entire collection of the novels of this writer – in order of publication and in English.

Nice to know what the Russian spooks read. I have been informed they got a few ideas over the years. 

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/frederick-forsyth/726126/trade-war-negative-effects-brexit-theresa-may-brussels-iraq-putin-ed-balls-Met-forecast 

Ex-KGB Spy Was Killed Because He Claimed Putin Was A Pedophile

Yaron Steinbuch at the New York Post offers a piece on the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinko in the United Kingdom.

The Russian government likely ordered Alexander Litvinenko’s assassination in part because he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a pedophile, a British inquiry concluded Thursday.

In the 300-page report, retired High Court judge Sir Robert Owen said Putin “probably” ordered the hit against Alexander Litvinenko, and used his position as head of Russian intelligence to destroy video evidence of himself having sex with underage boys — which was “the climax” of a bitter feud between the two men.

Owen said the personal attacks were among the “powerful motives” for the assassination.

“I am satisfied that, in general terms, members of the Putin administration, including the president himself and the FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service], had motives for taking action against Litvinenko, including killing him,” Owen wrote.

.. “The FSB operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr. Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin,” Owen said.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2016/01/21/murdered-ex-spy-accused-putin-of-pedophilia/

After Putin Ordered MURDER On British Streets David Cameron Admits He Has To Deal With The Russians - But Only With A 'Very Cold Heart' In A Diplomatic Stand-Off As Moscow Refuses To Hand Over The Litvinenko Assassins

The British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on a report that accuses Russian leader VladimirPutin of ordering the murder of Alexander Litvinko in the UK.

A public inquiry into the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko prompted a furious diplomatic row between Britain and Russia today after the independent probe said President Putin had 'probably' personally authorised the 2006 killing.

Mr Litvinenko - who had accused the Russian president on his death bed - was killed by two FSB spies who slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London, Sir Robert Owen said today in a major report.

Prime Minister David Cameron today said the report outlined what happened was 'absolutely appalling' but he admitted the Syria crisis meant Britain had to have a relationship with Russia albeit one with 'clear eyes and a cold heart'.

You can read the rest of the piece, view photos and watch a video clip via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409405/Inquiry-says-Litvinenko-killed-Putin-s-spies.html

See Putin For Who He Is

Former secretary of state Condoleeza Rice and former secretary of defense Robert M. Gates offer a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Russian leader Putin.

One can hear the disbelief in capitals from Washington to London to Berlin to Ankara and beyond. How can Vladimir Putin, with a sinking economy and a second-rate military, continually dictate the course of geopolitical events? Whether it's in Ukraine or Syria, the Russian president seems always to have the upper hand.

Sometimes the reaction is derision: This is a sign of weakness. Or smugness: He will regret the decision to intervene. Russia cannot possibly succeed. Or alarm: This will make an already bad situation worse. And, finally, resignation: Perhaps the Russians can be brought along to help stabilize the situation, and we could use help fighting the Islamic State.

The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what he wants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition of stability. He is defending Russia's interests by keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgent group that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow. We saw this behavior in Ukraine, and now we're seeing it even more aggressively - with bombing runs and cruise missile strikes - in Syria. Putin is not a sentimental man, and if Assad becomes a liability, Putin will gladly move on to a substitute acceptable to Moscow. But for now, the Russians believe that they (and the Iranians) can save Assad.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20151015_See_Putin_for_who_he_is.html

Note: I covered the former defeense secretary for Counterterrorism magazine when he spoke at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.You can also read my piece on Robert Gates via the below link.

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/06/a-secretary-at-war-former-defense.html

The above photo of Putin was taken by www.kremlin.ru.

A New Spy Novelist For Vladimir Putin's World

I enjoyed Red Sparrow, the first spy thriller written by former CIA officer Jason Matthews, so I look forward to reading his second novel, Palace of Treason.

Jeff Stein, the author of a fine nonfiction book about the Vietnam War called A Murder in Wartime, and a writer for Newsweek, offers a piece on Jason Matthews.

The spy was going to be late. In Jason Matthews’s line of work, that was cause for worry. But on this rainy afternoon in Washington, D.C., the former CIA officer was merely dodging traffic, not a Russian trap. And he was rushing to meet a reporter, not a secret agent.

 

But shedding the cloak and dagger, it turns out, isn’t as easy as trading wingtips for Top-Siders. Both Matthews and his wife, Suzanne, also a former CIA secret agent handler, still look over their shoulders for hostile intelligence agents. It comes from three decades of dodging Russian, Chinese and other adversaries’ counterspies.

 

“Yeah, the old habits die hard, proving that there is no such thing as a former ops officer,” jokes Matthews, in town to promote his second, much anticipated spy novel, Palace of Treason. ”Suzanne and I notice cars behind us, we come home from parties with the same assessments of people, we still pick up a phone and think, 'It's tapped.'”  

 

... Like his CIA hero in Red Sparrow, which The New York Times called a “startling debut,” Matthews has shed one identity for another with hardly a stutter step. One day shortly after his 2008 retirement, he picked up a pen and started writing. Out came a thriller that drew widespread, even ecstatic praise, with the inevitable comparisons to not just John le Carré and Ian Fleming but Cormac McCarthy and even T.S. Eliot.  

 

At its center is Dominika Egorova, a once promising ballerina forced into training as a professional seductress by cretinous Kremlin intelligence bureaucrats. Egorova is back, of course, in Palace of Treason, this time at the behest of her handsome, self-effacing, equally idealistic CIA handler and rules-breaking lover Nate Nash, for whom she takes nerve-shattering risks, including a stab at seducing Vladimir Putin, who turns out to be plagued by EDS. (Trust me: This is high dark humor.)

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.newsweek.com/spy-novelist-vladimir-putin-world-340400