I'm currently revisiting some of my old literature and cases for a book chapter I'm working on, so I thought I'd share a particularly interesting case involving the Stasi, Swedish intelligence and a double agent with you all.

Thread time!

1/13 The story starts in 1985, when Swedish counterintelligence receives information that a member of the Women's Air Force Volunteers is making regular visits to East Germany.

A closer investigation reveals that the woman has risen quickly in the ranks of the Volunteers.

2/13

Most people have some idea what Morse code is, but few people realize that it's still used today. So, here's a thread on why Morse code is still useful, why the Russians use it both for military and clandestine comms, and the link between POTUS and Morse code.

THREAD
(1/23) First of all, Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, who was actually a painter rather than an engineer (this is a self-portrait). He was also an inventor who made things like a stone-carving machine and a water pump for fire companies (neither of these were successful).
(2/23)

Time for a thread on one of my favorite examples of creative intelligence gathering: the time the Soviets built and successfully installed electromechanical keyloggers in IBM Selectric typewriters in the 1970s-1980s.

The story begins in 1983, when a Soviet defector revealed to the French DGSE that the Soviets had bugged the French embassy in Moscow.

The French found the bugs. Shortly after the NSA started to check the office and comms equipment used in the American embassy in Moscow.

Time for a new thread, this time the topic is: the plans for Swedish chemical weapons!

A suitably sinister topic on a dark January afternoon, and one with more than a passing connection to Lund.

Note: I'm not an expert on the subject, so feel free to correct me. I went to the library to pick up a book on the Swedish nuclear weapons program (which is a different topic I'll cover another day), but I got stuck reading up about the chemical weapons (also featured in the book), so I figured I'd post a brief summary about it.

This sure is one hell of an expression. I wonder how my colleagues would react if I start using it in casual conversations at the department? Most of them probably know me well enough to expect a bit of weirdness from me by now though. One of my favorite moments was about a year ago, when someone pointed at my vintage briefcase, winked and asked "Whatcha got in there? Spy stuff?"

(Cont'd)

New arrests in Sweden this morning, two individuals have been apprehended. One is suspected of gross illicit intelligence collection targeting both Sweden and an unnamed foreign power, the other is suspected of aiding and abetting this. Two helicopters from the Swedish Armed Forces assisted the Swedish Security Service and national police in making these arrests. The individuals have, according to media sources, been active since January 2013.

For my English-speaking intel/security people, here's a summary thread re. the GRU espionage case in Sweden that is getting significant media coverage here today: Two brothers, Peyman Kia and Payam Kia, have today been charged with espionage on behalf of a foreign power. The exact charge is "grovt spioneri", meaning that it is a particularly serious form of espionage (in the sense that it can be assumed to have inflicted serious damage).

Intressanta saker på gång idag i underrättelse-/säkerhetssfären här i Sverige. Jag lägger upp fler uppdateringar efterhand under dagen. Ursäkta tystnaden, det har varit lite svårt att lägga upp uppdateringar p.g.a. ganska mycket frågor o dyl. från media. Jag kommer att dyka upp i TV4, SR Gräns, SvD och DN under dagen/kvällen.

I was asked to write a thread about the aborted attempt to make an interceptor version of the Tu-4 (i.e. the Soviet copy of the B-29), since I didn't have the space to cover it in my article. So, here goes! First of all, the Tu-4 was built to operate as a strategic bomber, like the B-29 it was copied from. But, the creative Soviets didn't stop there, they experimented with all sorts of derivative versions (including transports, aerial refueling planes, drone carriers, etc.).

My article on Soviet industrial espionage in the military aerospace sector during the Cold War is now published! It's open access, so anyone can read it (incl. in PDF format).

Feat. six case studies (Tu-4, Su-9, Su-24, Ka-25, Tu-160, MiG-31)

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… In the article, I investigate what Soviet industrial espionage in the military aerospace sector was actually used for. I employ three ideal types (Innovator, Copycat, Pragmatist) to see which of these provides the best fit for each of the six case studies.

I'm sorry, but every time I hear the phrase "the rapid pace of change today" or something like it, I can't help but think that the pace of change today is in fact much slower than it was during most of the previous century.

Think of 1910-1930 or 1935-1955 compared to 2002-2022. 1910-1930:

- the spread of electricity in homes
- radio & mass media becomes a thing
- Russian Empire replaced by Soviet Union
- World War I
- end of Ottoman Empire & German Empire
- huge advances in aviation
- stock market crash 1929
- Spanish Flu pandemic
- etc.

I note that the classic old trick of concealing an accent by creating a legend that explains minor oddities in pronunciation (but which points in a completely different direction) is still going strong.

https://twitter.com/eugene_finkel/status/1537501602566787074

This is quite clever, IMO. Perfecting an accent is extremely difficult, which for example the OSS and SOE struggled with during infiltrations of France during WWII. The solution is thus to deliberately adopt an accent, but an artificial one.

Jag tycker att diskussionen om svensk underrättelsetjänst och invasionen av Ukraina kan gynnas av att nyanseras en del, så här kommer mitt perspektiv på det hela.

1. Man landa i fel slutsats även med "rätt" process. Underrättelseanalys är inte en exakt vetenskap. Hade Must rätt process? Inte vet jag, men det går heller inte att säga utifrån öppet material. Det kommer förmodligen att dröja decennier innan någon kan analysera det forskningsmässigt och publicera öppet om det.

OTD in 1952, a Swedish Air Force DC-3 was shot down by Soviet fighters. The crew comprised three Air Force officers and five SIGINT operators from the National Defense Radio Establishment (Swe. abbr: FRA).

Some more info on Swedish postwar SIGINT follows in this thread.

https://twitter.com/FRAdioanstalt/status/1536213285833523202

Swedish cooperation and tech transfers with the West started during the latter part of WWII. Significant numbers of Allied airmen were interned in neutral Sweden after making emergency landings. A number of Americans were repatriated in a secret deal, for 50 Mustang fighters.

The current Russian invasion in Ukraine has, from the way it looks to me, many parallels with the 1973 Yom Kippur war (which is part of what I researched for my doctoral dissertation some years ago).

So here's a thread on what I consider to be the most relevant aspects: 1. The strange Russian decision to go for a full-scale invasion

Why did the Russians seem to think that Ukraine would crumble in a few days, and that they could simply drive into Kyiv? To me, this looks like a classic example of groupthink.

How's this for an antenna? 2.2 km long, suspended from six 127 m towers.

Today I stopped by the Grimeton radio station, finished in 1924, a UNESCO heritage site. Originally built as a transatlantic wireless telegraphy transmitter, it was later used for much shadier stuff.

🧵 The location of the site as well as the dimensions of the antenna were selected to provide optimal conditions for transmitting wireless telegraphy between Sweden and the US.

The frequency was 17.2 kHz, meaning that the wavelength is an amazing 17 km.

Sometimes you find the most weird stuff in the KGB files. I just read one about a fire in a rail yard, which destroyed four diesel locomotives. Evidence of arson was located afterwards. The KGB suspected sabotage and launched an investigation. More than 100 witnesses were questioned. The number of suspects was narrowed down to 30, and then after a more thorough investigation, five men were found to have contradicting stories about their whereabouts on the night of the fire.

Time for the first thread on KGB operational combinations, using a minor case as illustration!

First of all, what is an operational combination? Simply put, it's an operation with the goal of manipulating the adversary into acting. If you've heard of the concept of Reflexive Control, this probably sounds familiar. Through deception and manipulation, a trap is set for a counterintelligence target, to make the target compromise itself.

Currently preparing a lecture on counterintelligence, and it is striking how the tactics developed by the Swedish Security Service in the late 1980s and 1990s reflect a significantly more sophisticated and effective approach than the literature on CIA during the same time period. For example, one author, using the CIA as an example, states that it is virtually impossible to track a well-trained hostile intelligence officer on a way to a clandestine meeting. They will engage in advanced antisurveillance for hours.

Ok, I'm going to drop Wohl's latest antics, but not before I've analyzed this spectacular failure from a classic Soviet maskirovka perspective. Here we go.

(THREAD) One of my favorite books on Soviet maskirovka is Ulfving's "Den stora maskeraden" (which is now out of print), so I'm using that as point of departure here, since it uses concise definition/criteria lists which makes discussion easier in a format like this.

An amazing story about my employer, Lund University, broke yesterday, after having been kept under the lid for four years. In 2014, the wife and children of one of our yazidi PhD students went to Iraq to attend a wedding. They got trapped by the sudden IS offensive. (cont'd) The PhD student, naturally very distressed, rushed back to Iraq to join them and try to keep them safe. They then got encircled by IS troops. The PhD supervisor in Sweden found out, and contacted the head of security, who arranged a team of private military contractors. (cont'd)