JACK BARKSY

Putin’s war in Ukraine through the eyes of a KGB insider

Former agent talks to Kathimerini about what is keeping the Russian president afloat and the workings of the propaganda machine

Putin’s war in Ukraine through the eyes of a KGB insider

His life is similar to that of a Hollywood hero – perhaps the super-spy Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon in the famous film series. Except that Jack Barsky was not in the ranks of the CIA, but the KGB at the end of the Cold War.

Having been born in East Germany, he joined the KGB, where he received the most intensive training in the Russian service. He graduated from the same training program as President Vladimir Putin and was given the mission to infiltrate the US as one of the best field agents. In America, he joined progressive left-wing organizations, collected information, and was integrated into American society, where he conducted espionage for 10 years (1978-88).

In this interview with Kathimerini, Barsky outlines the thinking of the Russian leadership and the role of propaganda and puts together the mosaic of the invasion of Ukraine. The unknown world of espionage and its modern implications are described in Barsky’s book: “Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America.”

How did you join the KGB and why did you decide to become a spy?

I never had an inkling of a thought when growing up that I would become an agent, a spy. I studied chemistry, and I was really good at it. And I was on my way to becoming a tenured professor. I had the grades. I was a party member and I had a decent personality. And then one day, the KGB introduced themselves. Even if I had wanted to work for the KGB, I would not know how to go about it, because there was no office with a sign that said KGB. And the KGB was not in the phone book. So, they recruited me.

Intelligence services go through the records as they are available to find candidates that they can recruit. Now, the CIA is different. You can apply to join the CIA. And generally, Western intelligence services are more open. But the Stasi, the East German secret police, and the KGB pretty much recruited. And the reason that they had the ability to sift through records is that, in East Germany, there was a record on file about everybody. The Stasi collected information about every individual who lived in that state. And my record said, “He is damn good and smart.”

Having completed the same KGB training as President Putin, what do you think his motives were behind the invasion of Ukraine?

That is not a secret. He has stated it openly and two years ago there was an essay published that has his name on it. Whether he wrote it or not does not matter. But it is his opinion. And he clearly stated what he wants. It is his mission to re-establish a great Russia, the greatness of Russia that Russia once was. That is an illusion. Russia was never a great state. Ninety percent of the Russian population were peasants. But anyway, that is what he wants to do, and when people think he wants to re-establish the Soviet Union, that does not make a lot of sense simply for one reason: The communist ideology does not play anymore. It is now Russian nationalism. And when you talk about greater Russia, there are all these Slavic people, that speak Russian or something similar to Russian – e.g. Polish. So that is what he thinks his mission is. And obviously, it takes a huge ego to say, “That is what I am going to do.” So, he is completely in love with himself. And he wants to establish a legacy for himself when he is not here anymore. And he does not have many years left.

In your view, how long before the war was Russian intelligence planning the invasion? Were they prepared for Western sanctions?

I think Russia did a great job preparing. Because the sanctions have no impact on their behavior. And there are a lot of countries that are quite friendly with Russia, which did not belong to the Western world like China, Iran and North Korea. And then you have many sorts of almost neutral countries that are dealing openly and freely with Russia, India being the most prominent. Therefore, Putin sort of knew he had the European Union because they import that much oil and natural gas from Russia. And so actually he is now earning more money from his oil and gas exports than before the war.

Where the intelligence agencies failed miserably was in not anticipating the fighting spirit of Ukraine. They should have known this. I could have told him that. Ukrainians are extremely nationalist and the Ukrainians and Russians have had a history of fighting.

The worst measures that were imposed by Russia on Ukraine happened under Stalin in 1932-33. Stalin was trying to forcibly collectivize agriculture and also get rid of some of the peasants and put them in cities and make them workers in factories. So, Stalin decided to force them, and the KGB and military were sent in to do it: “Harvest all the grains from the Ukrainian peasants and make them go hungry.” In the process, 4 million Ukrainians starved to death.

There were towns where people are wandering around and were emaciated. There were dead people in the street and nobody could bury them because the people who could still walk did not have the strength. There are documented cases of parents eating their children after they passed. So, if as a nation you have that kind of memory, you absolutely hate the Russians.

Something else to be mentioned, if you fight a war against a country where you fight the entire population, you will not win. The United States found it out in Vietnam. The Soviet Union found it out in Afghanistan militarily. In both cases, the invader was much stronger, so it does not matter how much territory they conquer, they will always have to fight every man, woman and child. Therefore, I do not really understand why a reasonably capable intelligence agency did not know that and did not tell Putin, or if they did tell him, then he just ignored them and believed, “What the heck, we are just going to grind them into dust.”

‘Putin still has the full support of the majority of the Russian people. And if people think that the elections were manipulated, it is not true’

Do you think Putin’s ability to assess intelligence is fading?

Look, I do not believe that Russian intelligence is as well-funded as the KGB was. I mean, Russia as a country is not very strong and the Soviet Union was insignificantly stronger because a lot of the strength of the Soviet Union came from the republics that were around Russia.

You can also draw a conclusion by understanding the methodology that they are using like espionage through crowdsourcing. I am not saying they do not have well-trained agents, but they are using a lot of amateurs. If you throw volume at this technique some of the amateurs gain significant intelligence, but crowdsourcing in a situation like Ukraine does not work very well.

Both countries must have a lot of undercover agents on the other side. So now it becomes a game of who can deceive whom. So, if you have Ukrainians that work with the GRU (Chief Intelligence Office), well, they could also actually misinform them. And again, in this situation, the Ukrainians are much more motivated because they have always been concerned about the big neighbor who already had invaded. And so, one would think that a lot of undercover agents who work for Russia and Ukraine could feed their handlers bad information.

If Ukraine is a wider chessboard and Putin is a very good chess player, what is his potential next move?

I just think that he is going to continue what he is doing. He is trying to grind Ukraine into dust. And the question which comes up is, will he use nuclear weapons? I think the biggest danger has passed because when it was clear that it was not a walk in the park, that would have been the moment when he would have to use them.

Is Ukraine his final move or is he planning to move to some other region of the world?

First of all, he is pretty much tied up in Ukraine right now. He is making a little progress, but to even think of another military adventure would be suicidal. However, going into one of the Baltic states would obviously trigger a massive response by NATO.

With regard to Russia and China, they are strange bedfellows because they have a mutual interest and that is their hatred of the West. But that is where it ends. You know, China and Russia historically had conflicts in the places where Russia and China come together as a common border.

So, at this point, China supports Russia strongly because they are doing the work for China. And anything that weakens the West is good for China, but in the long term, China is much more deliberate, much bigger, and much stronger. And if they ever have an alliance, that would be for Russia to be subservient to China. And somebody like Putin would not like that.

In your opinion, what is the biggest threat to Putin at the moment? Is it the maintenance of the balance of power in his domestic politics with elections approaching?

No. Putin still has the full support of the majority of the Russian people. And if people think that the elections were manipulated, it is not true, because he is being elected over and over again and he always had the support of the Russians.

However, he fired some high-ranking officials.

Yes, he needs to find a scapegoat. That is but internally, the fact that he can fire them already shows that he is still in power and he has the support of the majority of the Russians. And if I may give you the reason for that, he had 22 years to convince the Russian people that the West wants to weaken Russia, that NATO is expanding, which was actually true, and when anything went wrong internally in Russia, he would just blame the United States and NATO. And since the Russian people do not have good access to the other side of the truth, they would believe his claims. That is called brainwashing.

Now, I am going to tell you how strong that brainwashing is. As a German, I have always wondered how the German nation fell for Hitler’s lies. So, Hitler had about 12 years to brainwash Germans. The brainwashing was fully effective already after three to five years.

So, Hitler had 12 years to brainwash the most intelligent people in the world and Putin had 22 years to do it. And the Russian people in general are not as highly educated. Therefore, draw your conclusion.

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