Thread by @alexzfinley

This FT story is chock full o’ fun. It is not directly related to #YachtWatch, but my weird obsession w/ oligarch yachts grew out of my research into Russian influence operations. 1/
ft.com/content/bd74a5…

It also provides a nice primer for my upcoming book (which is much funnier to read than anything the FT could write). Let’s dig in. 2/

The FT opens with a story that is sure to become a classic: A Russian intelligence officer caught on camera handling his source in Slovakia. 3/

You can see the video of the handler/asset meeting here. For anyone not familiar w/intelligence operations, it is generally not a good idea to be caught on camera handling your source. That should go without saying, but well, here we are. 4/

As @KeirGiles notes, there has been a reluctance to go after Russian intel in Europe and the US. I wonder why?* 5/

*I don’t, in fact, wonder why. See this thread for how Russia has gained influence across the US, UK, and Europe. 6/

https://twitter.com/alexzfinley/status/1463174443778416641?s=20&t=Kz4NYxI40vzQRyor7waAXg

This also should go without saying, but being called an "aircraft carrier" of covert Russian activity is not a compliment. Austria has a wee bit of work to do to dig itself out of a hole. 7/

For no reason*, here’s a pic of Austria’s (then) foreign minister dancing with Putin at her wedding.

*see previous tweet for the reason 8/

The FT goes on to outline some of the more recent cases. These are bad, but they are also kind of traditional bread and butter recruitments (although we can see the price for betraying your country is kind of cheap… $3000-$5000 for each handover of docs). 9/

Anyway, Russia has been up to all kinds of fuckery for a long time. The more traditional ops have involved their intel officers. Many of their active measures ops have involved the oligarchs. And that is, in part, how I arrived at researching oligarchs and their yachts. -fin-