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19 Mar, 6 tweets, 2 min read
EXCLUSIVE: Estonian counterintelligence just caught another spy working within NATO. Only this one wasn’t recruited by Russia; Tarmo Kõuts was recruited by China. With @holger_r: thedailybeast.com/top-nato-scien…
"According to Aleksander Toots, the deputy director of KAPO and Tallinn’s top counterintelligence official, Kõuts was recruited in 2018 by...Beijing’s military intelligence...along with an alleged accomplice who is yet to be tried in court."
"The intelligence operatives handling him were operating under cover of a think tank. Inna Ombler, the prosecutor handling the case confirmed that Kõuts earned €17,000 -- a little over $20,000 -- for his espionage, which the Estonian government has since seized from him."
"[Kõuts] became a member of the Scientific Committee of the NATO Undersea Research Center based in La Spezia, Italy and even served, from 2018 to 2020, as the vice president of that organization, which is now known as the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE)."
A little context on Estonia as one of Europe's leading spy-catchers: theatlantic.com/international/…
news.yahoo.com/european-spies…

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More from @michaeldweiss

Michael Weiss Profile picture
17 Mar
NEW: My overview about the ODNI report and how it doesn’t have to name (American) names—we know who you are: thedailybeast.com/us-intel-expos…
And this KGB manual helps explain so much of what’s in the ODNI: newlinesmag.com/reportage/you-…
Yes, “dupes.” The ODNI not doesn’t suggest the Americans were witting Russian agents and there’s an entire category devoted to those who are manipulated by Russian spies without those spies ever acknowledging who they work for. See the above piece.
Read 8 tweets
Michael Weiss Profile picture
16 Mar
Yes, and their methods slightly more elaborate than creating bogus Twitter personalities or buying Facebook ads. The reliance on *American* agents of influence and confidential contacts was arguably greater in 2020 than in 2016.
One need only look at how Prigozhin, for instance, evolved from remote online influence and mercenary activities to creating consultancy-style organizations and NGOs from Libya to Germany. There was zero chance this wouldn't affect the strategy toward the US, too.
They hooked the former mayor of New York City and the president's personal attorney -- a much bigger fish than all the minnows reeled in five years ago (Papadopoulos, Prince, Page, et al).
Read 6 tweets
Michael Weiss Profile picture
16 Mar
A few key points made in the ODNI.

1. "People linked to Russian intelligence," although unnamed here, laundered influence narratives by getting them covered in U.S. outlets and regurgitated by "prominent US individuals," including Trump affiliates.
2. The election infrastructure targeting was on a much smaller scale than in 2016 and appears to have been intent on data-harvesting, not rigging results (a hard thing to do).
3. This is awkwardly worded because it can be read that Kilimnik is "connected" to the FSB; he's almost certainly GRU given his background.
Read 8 tweets
Michael Weiss Profile picture
15 Mar
Short thread. Watching EMPIRE STRIKES BACK now. Palpatine tells Vader Luke is his kid and Vader immediately goes into Sith counterintelligence mode: “If he could be turned...” Not even a 4th-degree-burnt eyelid’s flutter to reflect, “Oh wait, I have a son!”
The wife he thought he killed right away in a fit of jealousy—the wife whose life he turned to the Dark Side to save—bore him an heir he never knew about and he doesn’t even hesitate to think how it might benefit his boss. And then...
When he “reads” Luke’s feelings in JEDI, during the throne room battle scene, and realizes he also has a daughter, Vader again doesn’t flinch or hesitate. He sticks to his duty and keeps fighting. To try to flip or kill his estranged son.
Read 8 tweets
Michael Weiss Profile picture
8 Mar
"And so we leaked it to the New York Times": nytimes.com/2021/03/07/us/…
Re: this White House walk-back, I see one of two things here, neither of them particularly good for the NYT:
1. The term "cyberstrike" could be interpreted as "cyberattack," which wouldn't be reciprocal given that SolarWinds was an espionage operation (so far as we know!). It didn't shut down computer systems the way NotPetya did. So the WH wants to clarify it's not "striking."
Read 10 tweets
Michael Weiss Profile picture
4 Mar
This title is still in print and the buying frenzy of all Dr. Seuss books only benefits the company that decided to discontinue (or “cancel”) the more controversial ones. One side in this kulturkampf is enriching the other side it accuses of being totalitarian.
I’m old enough (just barely) to remember the first iteration of this madness; perhaps it’s my generational bias, but I found the reaction to “PC” in the 90s more entertaining and edifying. Hughes. O’Rourke. Amis. Hitchens. This era is dumber than a box of dirt.
Two of my favorite essays are about the same thing: the attempt to reassess or abnegate Philip Larkin as a poet because of what was revealed about his scabrous, racist and misogynistic tendencies when Motion’s biography and Larkin’s letters came out.
Read 10 tweets

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