ON MY MIND
In many ways, reports about the arrest of two FSB officers, a cybersecurity expert, and the founder of a notorious hacking group are a classic Russian story replete with layers of subterfuge, deception, diversion, and embedded meaning.
At the simplest level, two FSB officers working in cyberdefense, Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchaev, as well as Ruslan Stoyanov, a former Interior Ministry official who works for the cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, are being charged with espionage.
According to Russian media reports, Mikhailov is suspected of alerting U.S. intelligence to FSB links with a Russian server-rental company believed to be the nexus for cyberattacks against the United States.
So far, so straightforward.
Until it isn't.
Leaks to the Russian media have linked Mikhailov to a hacker group known as Shaltai Boltai, which in the past has released embarrassing material about top Russian officials.
Moreover, Dokuchaev is reported to be a former hacker known as Forb who was serving a prison sentence for credit-card theft when he was recruited by the FSB. He has also been identified in press leaks as a member of Shaltai Boltai.
Vladimir Anikeev, the founder of Shaltai Boltai has also been arrested, but is not being charged with espionage.
As Leonid Bershidsky notes in a piece featured below, this isn't uncommon in the FSB, where "officers often run private security operations involving blackmail and protection." And it's also not unusual for the FSB to recruit former hackers. In fact, it's pretty much standard practice.
Adding to the intrigue and high stakes, Mark Galeotti notes in a commentary featured below, the FSB's Information Security Center, which Mikhailov headed and where Dokuchaev was his subordinate, has emerged as "a pivotal agency" and "a source of power." And this makes it a prime arena for fierce rivalries and power plays.
So was this a straightforward espionage case that got entangled in high-stakes clan warfare?
Was it an FSB protection racket that spun out of control and inadvertently passed information to U.S. intelligence?
Is this truly connected to the U.S. election hacking scandal?
Is the whole Shaltai Boltai angle a smokescreen?
We'll need to see a lot more data points before reaching definitive conclusions.
IN THE NEWS
The U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House warns that civil liberties came increasingly under threat in 2016 as authoritarian powers gained strength in many parts of the world and "populist and nationalist forces" rose in democratic states.
Russia's Federal Security Service has announced that Ilma Umerov, deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, the community's top executive organ, has been charged with "actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation."
A former Russian presidential envoy to the Sakhalin region in the Far East, Vitaly Guly, has been detained in Moscow on extremism charges.
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is suggesting that U.S. President Donald Trump did not raise the issue of human rights with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their telephone conversation on January 28.
The Ukrainian soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk will play their future home games in the city of Kharkiv throughout the year, the club announced on January 30.
The International Paralympic Committee has moved to bar Russian athletes from participating in qualifiers for the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Russia's No.2 oil producer, Lukoil, is seeking opportunities for growth in the Middle East as Iran opens its oil fields to international partners, a senior executive says.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has cut short a working visit to Germany to oversee an emergency situation that has developed around the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiyivka.
WHAT I'M READING
Hackers, Spies, And Intrigue
In The Moscow Times, Mark Galeotti of the Institute of International Relations in Prague weighs in, arguing that the arrests of FSB cybersecurity officials is probably both a genuine espionage case and political infighting.
In his column for Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky looks at how Russia's hackers became a headache for the Kremlin, citing the case of the hacking group Shaltai Boltai as an example of how security and law-enforcement officials use their positions to run protection rackets.
And in Republic.ru, Anastasia Yakoreva looks at some of the revelations resulting from Shaltai Boltai's hacks.
Here Comes The Reset
In The Moscow Times, foreign affairs analyst Vladimir Frolov weighs in on the Trump-Putin phone call and the future of U.S.-Russian relations.
The Great Ukrainian Wall
Anna Nemtsova has a piece in The Daily Beast looking at whether Ukraine will really "build a wall to keep out the Russians."
Inside The Disinformation Machine
The Hungarian online news site Index.hu has an investigation into how pro-Kremlin websites operate in that country.
The View From The Baltics
Aliide Naylor has a piece in New Eastern Europe on "Trump, Russia, and the New Geopolitics of the Baltics."
Mr. Putin Goes To Budapest
The Center for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy previews Putin's upcoming visit to Hungary.
Peter Kreko, a visiting professor at Indiana University and a senior associate at the Political Capital Institute, has a piece in EUObserver arguing that the axis between Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is threatening the European Union.
Anti-Putin Speakers Not Welcome
BuzzFeed reports that the Paris School of International Affairs is now cancelling anti-Putin speakers.
The Kremlin And CalExit
In a piece for Bloomberg, Leonid Ragozin looks behind the CalExit movement and finds -- Putin.
From The You-Can't-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department
Kevin Rothrock at Global Voices has a piece on how the pro-Kremlin tabloid Life has released a video explaining how Russians can exploit the recent decriminalization of domestic violence. The video is titled, "He Beats You Because He Loves You," and it explains the "top five ways to commit domestic violence without leaving any traces on your loved ones."
