Well, months before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. went public with intelligence that suggested the Kremlin, despite its denials, was planning to start a war. Well, in February of last year, that intelligence proved to be spot on. It is impossible to measure the value of intelligence, but ask any general from Berlin to London to Washington, and they will tell you it's better to have too much intel than not enough. Well, apparently the CIA thinks there has never been a better time to recruit spies in Russia. Russian spies. The U.S. intelligence agency is using social media and the dark net to extend an invitation to Russian citizens who may have access to state secrets to get in touch. The invitation comes in the form of a video that speaks to Russians who love their country, but not where it is going. Take a look. This is my Russia. This will always be my Russia. I will stand up. My family will stand up. We will live worthily thanks to my actions. Well, this attempt to recruit Russians to be spies, it's certainly not classified information. In fact, the Kremlin says it is aware of the CIA video. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that Russian security forces are monitoring the information space in the face of continued Western activity. I don't know. I haven't seen it. But I'm convinced that our special services are also monitoring this space in the necessary way. Given that, and we all know perfectly well that the CIA and other Western intelligence services are not reducing their activity on the territory of our country. All right, I want to bring in now Dmitry Alperovitch. He's a cyber policy and security expert. He's been a special advisor to the Pentagon. He now advises the Department of Homeland Security. Dmitry, it's good to have you on the program. Let me ask you, why do you think the CIA considers- The here and now to be an unprecedented time and opportunity to reach out to Russians who may have state secrets to share. Well, we might very well be living in the golden age of recruitments of Russian sources right now. And both the CIA and frankly, the FBI have been pretty aggressive in their campaigns. This is not the first video that the US government has put out urging Russian officials to contact US government to become a source for US intelligence community. And they're indicating that this is working. We've had Hundreds of thousands, potentially as many as a million people have left Russia. A lot of people that are very dissatisfied with where the country is going with this war. So they're ripe for targeting being targeted by the US intelligence community. So let me ask you to put on your your cybersecurity expert hat here. The CIA says that, you know, prospective spies, they can trust the dark net, a Tor browser to get in touch with the CIA. Now, is it really possible for Russians? To communicate with the Central Intelligence Agency by using something like, I guess, a 007 phone number. Well, the Tor browser is actually widely used by a number of people around the world, dissidents as well as others that want to focus on privacy. It's a way to both browse anonymously to websites to communicate with people anonymously. It's fully encrypted. It's been in use for about 20 years, so it's very well understood and analyzed technology. So it's quite secure if you follow the instructions on how to use it appropriately. And were you struck, Dmitry, by what was not said in this video? They didn't mention the words Vladimir Putin once, and they did not mention the war in Ukraine. Is there a reason for this noticeable absence? Well, recruiting sources is always very tricky. You're actually asking someone to betray their country and you want to have a pitch that is soft. So in this particular case, it's more about trying to help the country versus to betray it. And, you know, we'll see if it's effective potentially decades down the road when the history of this period is written. But I think it's the right thing to do to not be overly pushy, overly criticizing and make it clear to people that they're trying to help the country versus to betray it. Is there a decent amount, a promising reserve of discontented, disgruntled Russians? who perhaps the CIA could tap into? I think there is. And there's been reports just this week that there have been a number of even senior officials within the Russian government, including governors, that have been trying to resign from their positions and have been basically told by the Kremlin that not only will they not be allowed to resign, but they may face criminal penalties if they keep pushing this issue. So there's quite a lot of people that are not just unhappy with the direction, and... but are also very unhappy with the fact that they're no longer welcome in Western societies, that they can no longer, corruption is very widespread in Russia, of course, they can no longer stash their money overseas, send their families as easily to spend money in the Khan and South France and other great destinations. So those are the people that the CIA and FBI want to target for agreement. And the Kremlin, it is aware, apparently, that People are not happy, and the likelihood that someone will betray his or her country is high. The punishment for being a traitor has been increased in just the last year. Do you think what the CIA is doing now with this video to recruit spies, do you think that is going to, I guess, make the stakes even greater for Russians who want to do something to end what they perceive as madness in their own country? Well, the stakes have always been high. If you're caught as a traitor in Russia, or even if you're accused unfairly as being a spy as we now have with journalists, particularly the Wall Street Journal reporter, that there's been accused of being a spy unfairly by the Putin regime, you can be locked up for life. You can be locked up for many, many years in the labor camps. So the people that are going to be contacting these agencies are well aware of the risks. And they have to balance it out and determine if there is an opportunity for them to potentially one day get citizenship in a Western country and set up for a new life there. The CIA has made it a point to say that with this video, they're not advocating any type of domestic unrest in Russia. But I was also struck by the fact that the CIA did not say that this campaign would not advocate or maybe lead to regime change or change at the top in Russia. I mean, it could be understood as a catalyst for getting rid of Vladimir Putin. I don't think so. I think the people that are most likely to be receptive to these pitches are going to be mid-career bureaucrats. You're, I think, very unlikely to recruit anyone very senior within the Putin entourage that would potentially be capable of orchestrating a coup against them. And coups are always very dangerous because you don't know what's going to come next. Even if you have someone who's working for you that might orchestrate a coup, there's no guarantee that they'll continue working for you. And they may turn out to be worse than the person that they replaced. Dimitri, before we let you go, you say this could be the golden age for recruiting Russian spies for Western intelligence in general. They were spot on with the information they made public leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Are we also living in maybe a golden age of acting, being able to act on reliable intelligence? We have seen a complete sea change in how intelligence is used in the United States in the last two years because it used to be when you're collecting this secret information you lock it up you let very few people see it what the US government has done is by publicizing it they've been able to actually alter Russian plans we know that Vladimir Putin wanted to have a false flag operation that would justify his invasion of Ukraine because of the intelligence that has been released he was unable to do so and that has impacted his ability to justify this illegal aggression. Dmitri Alperovitch, it's good talking with you. Excellent analysis and context to help us understand what's going on in the shadows. Thank you. Thank you.