At the first anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian war, those following the conflict have witnessed a growing dependence on intelligence at both ends, that has been used to map out the contours of the conflict and potential developments. The role of the intelligence services in the war began just before its outbreak, in anticipation of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine. As the war broke out, intelligence began to be more pervasively employed and in unconventional uses. Information has been shared amongst decision makers, with allied states, as well as non-state actors, and has sometimes been shared to influence public opinion. 

War in Ukraine entered its second year on February 24, with a growing role of intelligence in shaping and tackling pressing global developments. Whether at the level of predicting events, as UK and US intelligence did before the Ukrainian War, or at the level of building strategies to block adversarial tactics, which became evident after the outbreak of the war, there is a growing reliance on intelligence agencies to preempt crisis. A look at the past year shows that the intelligence component was strongly present at the scene, and was related to the dissemination of strategic information on the war, the sharing of information with allies and the public, and the return of what some services describe as “spy wars”. These developments indicate the need to identify the most prominent trends and roles that intelligence agencies have had in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Manifestations

The world’s intelligence services have played an important and vital role in dealing with the Russian-Ukrainian war that erupted on 24 February 2022. The following points illustrate the most prominent displays of intelligence behind the war:

1. Predicting Russia’s preparations to launch a military assault: The first indication of the presence of intelligence services appeared in December 2021, when The Washington Post newspaper published its prediction that the Kremlin was planning a multi-fronted attack on Ukraine early in the following year. The newspaper reported that US intelligence had suggested that as many as 175,000 Russian soldiers would participate in the attack, and presented estimates on the number of Russian soldiers and battalions located near the Ukrainian border. In related news, reports in late December 2021 indicated that UK intelligence expected a Russian war against Ukraine, prompting the British to plan the evacuation of several troops and military trainers in Ukraine.

2. Intelligence-sharing among allies: It has been suggested that the war has heralded a new era of intelligence-sharing between Ukraine, the United States, allies and other partners, which contributed to strengthening Ukraine’s resilience in confronting the Russian military. Intelligence-sharing has also helped Ukraine strike strategic Russian targets. For example, on 28 September 2022, the German newspaper Die Zeit published, reported that German intelligence had provided Ukraine with critical information at the time. According to Die Zeit, more than 100 items of information, including some on Russian troop concentrations, the location of ammunition warehouses, and the exact location of a Russian airport with the number of aircrafts therein have been shared. There have also been reports that US intelligence played a vital role in targeting Russian generals on the battlefield and sinking Major Moskva’s cruiser into the Black Sea.

3. Availability of information on the war for its constituents: In January 2023, The Foreign Affairs website published an article by Amy Ziggart, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, entitled “Ukraine and the Next Intelligence Revolution”. The article noted that the role of intelligence in the current Ukrainian war went beyond the traditional functions, in terms of the nature and type of establishments supplied with information, pointing to research by the American Institute for War Studies that created an interactive map of the conflict based entirely on intelligence.

4. Russian reliance on the FSB: The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), the KGB’s successor, has shown a strong presence in the current war. According to Western estimates, Russian President Vladimir Putin was counting on the FSB to assess his plan for a new, pro-Russian, political system in Ukraine, entrusted to the FSB branch known as Section V, which is the only FSB division to be involved in the preparatory phase of war.

After Russia’s plans to overthrow the Ukrainian regime and bring in another political system faltered, Putin changed his plan regarding the role of the FSB. In this context, Western counterparts suppose that the FSB’s role has shifted to become the most important actor at the local level conducting intelligence missions on Ukraine’s military. It also includes the task of suppressing opponents of the Russian military, be it any party associated with the Ukraine or Western states, as well as overseeing the recruitment of Ukrainian agents, and overseeing investigations of those being prosecuted by the Federal Service.

5. The return of espionage: The Ukrainian war reactivated what is known by the security services as spy wars. This refers to states’ recruitment of certain elements to carry out intelligence missions. The recruitment mechanism is based primarily on enlisting diplomats, or persons relevant to decision-making circles. In the months after the start of Russia’s military assault on Ukraine, several Western states expelled some 500 Russian diplomats under the belief that the majority of these officials were secret intelligence officers, effectively taking orders from the FSB to obtain important strategic information, spread misinformation, and conduct clandestine activities that serve Russia.

There have been reports that since 2014, Western intelligence agencies have been working to identify Russian spies. Most notably, the Russian military intelligence unit known as the Unit GRU 29155, is believed to be responsible for acts of sabotage, destruction and assassination. It is also accused of being responsible for a massive explosion that destroyed an ammunition depot in a Czech forest in October 2014, and involved in the Salisbury poisoning incident in southern Britain in 2018.

6. Preempting the next steps in war: Intelligence agencies played an important role in assessing the potentialities of warfare. According to renewed data and latest developments, one of the most important indicators of this important role has been projections made by US intelligence in December 2022 regarding the decline in hostilities in Ukraine during the current winter, and that most of the combat will be concentrated in the areas of Bakhmut and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, noting that “both armies are conducting preparations, in preparation for any counterattack after winter.”

On a relevant note, in the past few days, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service said in press statements that all indications point to the continuation of war in the Ukraine with no close end. He noted that Russia is currently accumulating as many advantages as possible in terms of progress on the ground, in order to leverage its position to perhaps dictate the terms of peace at some point in the future. According to the statements, Russia has additional mobilization capabilities for up to one million soldiers, which may be deployed used if the need to do so arises. 

Significant developments

Intelligence services a traditionally important role in dealing with global events. Their role is mainly related to the exchange of strategic information with decision makers in friendly states, or the dissemination information for the purpose of swaying public opinion and psychological warfare. But the Ukrainian war has pushed the activity of intelligence services beyond its traditional roles in the following ways:

1. The disclosure of secret information: Intelligence services traditionally concealed information, only involving relevant decision makers and allies on a need-to-know basis. In the Ukrainian war, however, new patterns can be observed in which intelligence services have increasingly tended to disclose information to global public opinion. This is mainly linked to the need to counter Russian narratives and propaganda, and also serves the purpose to confuse Russian policy makers.

2. Increased intelligence role of sub-state actors: Non-state actors have received considerable attention on the margins of Ukraine’s war, both at the level of participation in the war, or at the level of supporting, coordinating, and promoting the dissemination of intelligence. In this context, various parties to the war have sought to pass on reports and intelligence through independent non-governmental intermediaries that influence public opinion. This is potentially linked to the rise in the patten of multiple actors in the Ukrainian landscape, and the rise in the roles of non-state actors with which intelligence services may not have direct contact. 

3. Intelligence services support the Western agenda: Western intelligence on the margins of the Ukrainian war played a proactive role aimed at disclosing Russian schemes, but then moved on to one of the key tools in the West’s strategy of placing extreme pressure on Russia. Even though intelligence gathering has sometimes faltered, seeing as how it failed to prevent the outbreak of war in the first place, it later contributed to international mobilization against Russia, as reflected by the occasional reports of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, or Russia’s use of fighters, mercenaries and terrorist elements, that lead the international community to sympathize with Ukraine, as well as putting pressure on Russia.

Significant presence 

In conclusion, it can be said that the presence of intelligence services in Ukraine has been one of the main features of this war, as well as one of the factors that reflect its extreme complexity. But, what is novel here, is that the role played by intelligence services has surpassed traditional functions, which indicates the increasing presence of intelligence workers in global and regional scenes in future periods.