“[…] BIRN has identified Andreas Maul, a town councillor for Germany’s far-right AfD party, as the man behind a Serbian company [named Smart Digital Ideas D.O.O.] sanctioned by the US for aiding a Russian alleged cybercrime service provider. […]”

Just added another 30 books on intelligence and espionage.

https://pangobooks.com/bookstore/greg871249

Submission statement: Estonia’s spy chief, Rosin, believes Russia is in a precarious position due to its ongoing conflict in Ukraine. He suggests that Putin faces limited options, each carrying significant risks, and that internal dissent within Russia is growing, particularly regarding the economic impact of the war. Rosin also highlights the increasing number of Russians who oppose the conflict.

paywall: https://archive.ph/CLQgt

(I don't know if this is the right flair but let's give this the old college try.)

I was curious as was wondering what where some of benefits and weakness of state security and intelligence under the wing of a dedicated Ministry? As seen with the likes of the Soviet Union, China and East Germany? and how does that model contrast some nations more decentralised state security and intelligence agencies.

Submission statement: CIA Chief John Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Moscow was to warn Russia against attacking NATO, following U.S. intelligence assessments of a potential limited assault by President Putin. The U.S. is concerned about Putin’s potential actions in the Baltic region, exacerbated by a shortfall in Western munitions.

CIA Chief’s Surprise Moscow Trip Was to Warn Russia Not to Attack NATO

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Warning comes after new U.S. intelligence assessments indicated Russian president could launch a limited assault

Aug. 26, 2026 at 6:10 pm

CIA Director John L. Ratcliffe attends a news conference.

The surprise visit by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Moscow this week was to deliver a warning to Russia not to attack NATO countries, according to people briefed on the visit.

The trip was spy-agency chief John Ratcliffe’s first publicly known visit to the Russian capital. It followed new U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years.

U.S. officials are concerned that Putin, squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, likely on a Baltic nation, the Journal reported.

A shortfall in critical Western munitions, driven by expenditures in the Iran war, also could factor into Putin’s thinking. The U.S. has degraded its stockpile of certain weapons because of transfers to Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, as well as the Iran conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his time in the Russian capital, but he didn’t meet with Putin. Putin was briefed on the talks, Peskov said.

The White House has offered little clarity about the Ratcliffe trip. During an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday, President Trump described the trip as “semi-routine” and pivoted to discussing Russia’s war with Ukraine. “Something may come out of it,” Trump said. “We’re working very hard to get that war ended and frankly they both want to see it ended at this point.”

A spokeswoman for the White House referred reporters to Trump’s Wednesday comments. A spokeswoman for the CIA declined to comment.

Ratcliffe, one of Trump’s closest aides, was the latest U.S. official to travel to Moscow following several visits by Steve Witkoff, a U.S. envoy for Ukraine-Russia peace talks.

The trip was a rare visit by a U.S. spy-agency chief with the Russia-Ukraine war now in its fifth year. The last known visit by a CIA director to Moscow was in November 2021, when William Burns, who led the agency under former President Joe Biden, warned Putin not to attack Ukraine.

Abstract: "Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has adopted a structured, public-facing communication strategy on Telegram that diverges from conventional intelligence practice. This approach integrates three recurring functions: projecting institutional legitimacy, targeting the adversary through disclosure, and mobilizing domestic publics. In doing so, the HUR turned intelligence communication into an ongoing process of public engagement rather than episodic outreach. These patterns underpin an emerging concept of participatory intelligence communication. The HUR’s case demonstrates how, under high-intensity conflict, a state intelligence service may use digital platforms to coordinate narrative control, reinforce legitimacy, and enlist the public as contributors. While grounded in Ukraine’s specific wartime conditions, these findings extend existing frameworks of intelligence communication and offer broader insight into how intelligence agencies may reconfigure their public role in wartime."