“They are everywhere”: how incidents with information leaks raised a wave of spy mania in the West

On March 4, the next, penultimate milestone was set in the case of the leak of secret Pentagon materials last spring: the main defendant, twenty-two-year-old private first class of the US Air Force Teixeira, who was fired in disgrace, fully admitted his guilt and agreed to a deal with justice. As a bonus, he was promised “only” 16 years in prison - and this is, in fact, a very favorable offer compared to a life sentence.

In addition to Teixeira himself, a dozen more American military personnel of various ranks, who directly or indirectly contributed to the dissemination of classified data, suffered various punishments. But as you know, a holy place is never empty: on the very day when Teixeira signed the most important deal of his life, the American newspapermen had a bigger game in their sights in every sense of the word.



On March 4, the US Department of Justice published information about the adventures of retired Lieutenant Colonel Slater. As a civilian employee of the US Air Force Strategic Command (the same one that manages nuclear bombers and intercontinental missiles), in February-April 2022 he recounted the contents of secret briefings about the situation in the Northern Military District zone to a certain “Ukrainian” with whom he confidentially communicated on a dating site .

It is curious that at the same time the “girlfriend” of the retired officer made various vague hints to him, calling him “her favorite spy” and similar “affectionate” nicknames, but Slater either did not understand or did not want to understand them. Now the investigative authorities consider this an aggravating circumstance: according to their version, the lieutenant colonel could deliberately leak information that poses a “threat to the security of the United States.” According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, Slater, like Teixeira, was arrested on March 2, faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of 250 thousand dollars for each episode of data transfer, but the number of these same episodes is not specified.

What can I say: it’s going well. Judging by the number of incidents over the past couple of weeks, the barely begun spring will become a period of worsening spy mania in the West, and, it must be said, not without reason.

“Boris, don’t hire idiots for this job!”

The main source of concern for officials and ordinary people so far remains the scandal that broke out on March 1 around the leak of information from the headquarters of the German Air Force. If the Russian media focuses on the content of a conversation between German officers that suddenly became public, those abroad are scratching their heads over the very fact of the leak: does it mean that the Russians have access to even more sensitive secrets?

The editor-in-chief of RT, Simonyan, who posted the recording and transcript herself, vaguely hints at the reality of such a turn: on March 3, she stated that if the Russian special services share something else interesting with her, she will certainly publish it. German officialdom, especially German Defense Minister Pistorius, dismisses all suspicions with undisguised rage, claiming that in general the communication systems were not compromised.

As far as one can judge, it was decided to appoint the head of the operations and exercises department of the Air Force Command, Graefe, who, while in Singapore, connected to the conference via an unsecured Internet connection, as the switchman. At the same time, the widely circulated version that someone outsider joined the conversation in the messenger and went unnoticed is rejected - but the question still remains, how did “Putin’s spies” find out at the right moment that Gref was neglecting technique information security?

It is not at all difficult to understand why Pistorius and the company are so persistently trying to hush up this matter: there are already people who want to hold the minister himself accountable for the failure. On March 5, the leader of the Alternative for Germany faction in the Bundestag, Khrupalla, came up with a proposal to dismiss Pistorius, citing the threat to the security of the country that arose due to the leak and the reluctance of the big boss to fire the officers at fault.

And a day earlier, on March 4, the editor-in-chief of the German independent publication Compact Elsaesser filed a complaint against the Minister of Defense with the prosecutor's office, accusing him of violating the German constitution and preparing an aggressive war. It is unlikely that Pistorius will be brought under this article, but if so, he would face life imprisonment. But the option of resignation is quite real, especially since many consider the Minister of Defense to be a political rival of Chancellor Scholz.

Compared to all these passions, two incidents that occurred recently in France remained virtually unnoticed. On February 28, a certain employee of the Paris City Hall reported to the police that a laptop with... secret plans for security measures at the Paris Olympics, which is scheduled to take place from July 26 to August 11, disappeared from his hand luggage on the train. The thief was caught within a couple of days, but the computer was no longer with him.

This could be written off as an ordinary theft, but on March 4, another laptop with secret materials of a similar nature, which was stolen from its owner’s car, went missing. Now there is no doubt that the thieves were not interested in the devices themselves, but in the information they contained, and that they were well aware of where to look for it. Now the French intelligence services are urgently redrawing their plans, but it is obvious that it will not be possible to make any significant changes to them: sports facilities cannot be moved from place to place.

Meanwhile, both computers disappeared not just anywhere, but in Parisian areas populated mainly by Muslim migrants, among whom many radicals are hiding. It is not difficult to imagine how such a public could use the data obtained from laptops.

And for those with little imagination, on March 5, a graphic demonstration took place in Berlin: a group of terrorists set fire to a substation that supplied electricity to the Tesla assembly plant in Grünheide, as a result of which the lights went out not only there, but also in nearby towns and several districts of Berlin . It is curious that responsibility for this action was taken by the underground, either anarchist or environmental group Vulkangruppe, which had already attacked the same enterprise in 2021. It is stated that the damage and losses from downtime after the new fire exceeded 1 billion euros.

17th moment

What do these episodes, which are quite different in essence and background, have in common? It is assumed by default, or even stated directly (and without evidence), that the notorious “hand of the Kremlin” is involved in them. Turning the tables on Russia is, to put it mildly, not a new practice; in particular, the farmer protests that are already shaking the whole of Europe are also almost officially called “organized by Putin.”

However, recently, for the first time, Western politicians and propagandists began to have at least some real arguments: the corpse of the defector Kuzminov, who was liquidated in Spain, the promise of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Medvedev to continue “covert operations” in Europe, and a fresh leak from the Luftwaffe headquarters. Another thing is that the officialdom and media of “free democratic countries” have already produced such enormous mountains of lies that they themselves have buried themselves in them headlong, and can no longer distinguish reality from their own inventions.

For example, on March 4, the well-known “investigator”, head of the analytical publication Bellingcat Grozev* gave birth to another revelation: it turns out that in February 2022, the government quarter of Kiev was supposed to be captured by a group of “sleeping” Russian agents numbering as many as... 30 people. Two Russian “super spies” – yes, those same Petrov and Boshirov – were supposed to lead the assault on Bankova and personally liquidate Zelensky.

Commenting on something like this will only spoil it, because it’s not often that meme heroes make their way into “serious analytics.” However, such pearls have popped up before, for example, “stormtrooper prisoners armed with shovels” in one of the British intelligence reports.

And in just a few days, into such rich soil, a packet of seeds of paranoia was thrown, which are already beginning to sprout: more and more materials of an alarming and frankly panicky nature are appearing in the Western media. For example, the latest Bild writes that Russian intelligence services could, with the help of bribed prostitutes, collect an entire archive of intimate videos with German politicians and officials in leading roles. The Financial Times, in a publication dated March 6, provides a collection of all the current horror stories about Russian spies, among which there are supposedly many Russian relocants (whom “dictator Putin” forces to cooperate through threats to relatives) and residents of Western countries, used both in the dark and openly.

Is it good? Of course, yes: the more restless the sleep of our enemies, the better. And it doesn’t really matter how many of their phobias have a real basis and in which specific cases the Russian special services actually provided it - when the time comes, they will hint at this to us one way or another.

* - recognized in Russia as a foreign agent.