The scoop on expelling ‘spies’
OUSTING RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS SYMBOLIC — BUT WILL ALSO IMPEDE GATHERING OF INTEL
More than 100 alleged Russian intelligence agents have been expelled over the past week from 24 countries in the West including Canada.
A show of solidarity of this magnitude with the United Kingdom hasn’t been seen since the Cold War. It comes after Prime Minister Theresa May said the Russians attempted the poisoning on British soil of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
Canada is sending away four Russians, in Ottawa and Montreal, whom the government identified “as intelligence officers or individuals who have used their diplomatic status to undermine Canada’s security or interfere in our democracy,” in a statement Monday.
Q But what is going to happen in practical terms?
A So many countries acting at once will likely cause an administrative nightmare in Moscow, beyond sending Russian President Vladimir Putin a clear message that his actions are held in contempt.
“It’s really very hard to replace 100 spies, or people working for intelligence services under diplomatic cover, at once,” said Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor of international security at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a former security analyst for the Canadian government.
“This is a massive scale, right, so it’s actually going to be hard to replace.”
Sure, the signal that the 24 countries are sending is symbolic, but that doesn’t mean it is insignificant, Carvin said. “There’s a reason we do symbolic things: They carry weight. They carry meaning.”
The U.K. expelled 23 diplomats exactly a week ago. The United States announced on Monday that 60 agents would be sent back, but Russia, as of Tuesday morning, has not yet reacted.
Canada can expect Russia will reciprocate by sending back an equal number of Canadian diplomats, said Lawrence Lederman, a former ambassador and chief of protocol.
“It’s always tit-for-tat. And it’s better than throwing rockets at each other, got it? That’s the idea of this kind of thing.”
Q What will happen to the spies ... er, diplomats?
A Lederman explained that there’s a good chance Canada will have been “nice” about who to boot.
“If they’re decent, and they should be, they’ll choose people who have been here three or four years, you know, a long time, and are due to go out in the next month or two,” he said.
For any diplomat, a sudden change in position would be “a hardship” depending on his or her situation, Lederman said. But he doesn’t predict repercussions back in Moscow.
“It’s not his fault. He will not be or she will not be looked upon negatively by the host government who’s receiving them back, because they themselves, they are just pawns in this game.”
From an operational point of view, it’s a different story to lose four Russian staff in Canada than to lose four Canadian staff in Russia: our missions are typically much smaller. In addition to its embassy, the Russian government has three more outposts in Ottawa alone, and consulates in seven cities. By contrast, Canada has only its embassy in Moscow and a consulate in Vladivostok.
“When we lose a couple of people, and they may be completely innocent, it could be the trade guy ... and he will be sent out not because he’s doing anything untoward like spying or recruiting or anything. It’s because he is a pawn.”
Q Hang on. What kind of spying was Russia doing in Canada?
A We don’t know. But Carvin speculates — based on Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s “interfere in our democracy” wording — that it’s possible Russian agents were instructed to build up the kind of infrastructure required to try to influence the Canadian federal election in 2019.
The timeline would be consistent: Analysts have theorized that Russians were preparing for the 2016 American election as far back as 2009.
Although we hear a lot about Russian hacking and social media bots, the U.S. investigation into interference in its election turned up evidence that there was ground game, too.
“They sent people on the ground to get information so they could target their attacks more effectively,” Carvin said. “That was the really surprising thing that we learned from (Special Counsel Robert) Mueller, at least in my books, is the fact that this wasn’t just a cyber operation, that this was a human intelligence operation as well.”
It’s an open question, she said, whether individuals in Canada were trying to set up similar infrastructure, even though Canada’s electoral system would make it more difficult for them to meaningfully interfere.
Q Why would Canada let spies operate here in the first place?
A Everybody does it, Lederman said. The Americans have CIA officers embedded in foreign embassies, and Canada’s intelligence agency has people at key missions, too. Besides, “every diplomat tries to get information about a country,” he said. “If it’s a country of interest, and they allow us, we allow them, and it’s done.”
“We know that certain governments — like, all governments, really — have some kind of intelligence officials attached to their embassy, whether friendly or hostile. And, you know, you want to identify who these people are and that’s the job of security services, CSIS and RCMP,” Carvin explained.
“And you could kick them out. But they’re just going to be replaced very soon afterwards, so it’s probably better just to keep an eye on them and see who they’re talking to, and what they’re up to, and to follow them around. And that’s basically what happens. It’s a cat-andmouse game.”