A Model Estonian Soldier Who Spied for Russia | Hacker News Reader

A Model Estonian Soldier Who Spied for Russia

theatlantic.com

64 pointsprostoalex14 comments

>> He had accepted money for information—“That was the first step,” he told me—and met the man who would be his handler for the years to come, Anton.

So Russian. So KGB/GRU. America will spend billions putting a satellite up in orbit to spy on a man in a tent. Russia will get the same level of information with a couple fake cops, a girl, and a few dollars paid to vulnerable kid.

>> an artillery specialist

He was the perfect target. Artillery doesn't translate into the civilian world. Artillery people are more afraid of losing their military jobs than other trades. A sex video would put more fear into an artillery person than say a pilot or medic, people who could walk away from the military into a stable civilian career.

>> While Metsavas was in Afghanistan, GRU agents had traveled to Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok, to meet with his father. Volin had retired there from London years earlier to be closer to his new wife’s parents, but his partner had fallen ill.

And he has family retired to somewhere accessible to Russian agents? I wouldn't be surprised to hear that his father's new wife was also an agent. Again, sooo Russian. They checked every human intelligence box. America leverages technology. Russia leverages people.

The frightening thing about an intelligence officer pitching you is the moment that it happens and feelings of fear, being overwhelmed (Is this really happening? Who are they? Where are they from? I thought they were X but really they are Y? Why me? Why now? What do they want? Will they hurt me or my loved ones if I don't agree? Are they recording this? Who else can I not trust? What do they know about me? How much do they know about me? How did they find out about XYZ? Do they know about my other thing? How can I stop this? Do I want to stop this? Can I trust them? Etc etc etc)

If the person being pitched can compose themselves and buy time to think there is nearly always a way out. Despite what people think intelligence pitching usually has an element of bluff. A handler making a pitch deep down knows this.

If the person being leveraged can find a way to call the bluff (and fight the fear of blackmail) usually the handler will back off - despite what they may say they might do ("We will expose you"). It's generally too risky for the handler to get involved in games and threats of exposing the blackmail evidence. Afterall, they want to continue in their job and aren't gonna risk damaging their own cover, career etc by trying to burn a source who rejected them. Most pitches fail.

Plus a person willing to fight their fear and run the risk of the blackmail compromise being exposed isn't likely to be someone who you are going to easily be able to control. The KGB trying to blackmail the Indonesian President over sex tapes comes to mind...the perfect response:

Given Sukarno’s boasts, the KGB shouldn’t have been too surprised that its efforts to blackmail him went astray. “When the Russians later confronted him with a film of the lurid encounter, Sukarno was apparently delighted,” Lister wrote. “Legend has it he even asked for extra copies.”

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-bl...

Of course it is worth pointing out that blackmail isn't usually a very good method of pitching someone and turning them into a source. It comes with too many problems. Smart and more effective pitches tilt towards cooperation not coercion.

How do you know so much and can you talk more about the intelligence trade?

I've done various bits of training over the years. My company provides security for NGOs, journalists and activists all over the world. It's an unfortunate part of the job that this sort of stuff happens to a lot of the people we work with.

If the lady is cooperating with the intelligence agency - he would then be imprisoned in Russia for her rape. Esp. knowing how they do that in Russia.

I think the only reasonable thing to do in this situation is to do what another comment in the thread mentioned: to contact your commander.

But in this situation there was another issue for the guy: his relatives live in Russia, so there might have been a case of him never seeing them again. Or having to work as a double-agent.

I think there is a huge difference between trying to coerce a president of a country residing in his own country, against a literal nobody residing in the country of his military’s enemy who also have access to his relatives there.

Also there’s a difference between a person having Estonian passport or a British one very much.

I find it funny that Christopher Nolan is shooting a spy movie less than a hundred meters away from this guy's prison cell.

Somehow I don't expect the movie to be as interesting as this real story is.

Interesting, so she must have led him to the camera bugged sex motel and particular room, where he was then accused of rape

exasperated by prostitution being illegal in Russia and just fighting that alone would have torpedoed his military career in Estonia

fascinating.

so many tweaks to personal choices as well as that society which could have prevented all of this.

That's his perception and what (if this story is fully true) led him to take that particular option.

The alternative and smarter choice would have been to walk straight into his commander, tell them what happened, pass it up the chain to Estonian Counter Intelligence, deal with the short/medium term repurcussions and live a normal life. This stuff happens all the time in business and government. Though it seems like it, it's actually not a massive deal to report this stuff, it's why counter intelligence exists (or corporate security in the business context).

I would guess and say there have probably been dozens of times in Estonia alone when people took the smart option and reported things.

And that's why he is likely being less than entirely forthcoming with his story. There's very likely something more to it, though the world may never know what it is.

Well, he doesn’t know it’s an intelligence op at that time, right? He’s only overwhelmed and doesn’t actually know what cooperation means. They’re subverting the same instinct that people in America have which needs to be protected by “Don’t talk to the police” which is “you’ve done nothing wrong. Just be upfront and we’ll help you out”. Then as time passes, the hold constricts around him.

An allegation of rape will have finished off his career. No doubt about it. Take the Assange situation, then add an actual video of him having sex. Even if it were obviously not a single cut, enough people will hate him for it. “It’s a GRU op” people will be treated as conspiracy theorists.

I’m not saying the Assange situation is like this (that he was entrapped) to be clear, but the reactions you read online to that will be similar to what this man would have received had the video been made public.

On the up-side, he wouldn’t have been imprisoned for spying against his country. On the downside, his blossoming career would have ended. But in the moment, the upside seems unlikely, rare and far off. The downside is immediate. The upside is subject to hyperbolic discounting.

The reason I doubt the theory of “this happens quietly many times” is that KAPO would be aware of the strategy and would have every incentive to inoculate Estonians about it, and to crow about their native heroes who escaped Russian clutches. Instead they only allowed revealing of the strategy via a caught spy.

> That's his perception and what (if this story is fully true) led him to take that particular option.

“Let me go buy this women flowers at her chosen room in a sex motel”

I also felt like this story was retroactively one-sided

At the same time I couldnt imagine BORDERING a hostile but interrelated country so easily

With prostitution throughout Europe also being so readily available and streamlined especially back when this story happened

It sucks he got caught in this particular mix

"Looks like you are offline" - the Atlantic. HTTP response code : 200 . Interesting way of framing.

New Netflix show?

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