C.I.A. goes dark in Moscow

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Vital C.I.A. informants in or close to the Kremlin have largely gone silent ahead of November's midterm elections, American officials said.CreditCreditChristopher Furlong/Getty Images
Kremlin Sources Go Quiet, Leaving C.I.A. in the Dark About Putin's Plans for Midterms
By Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg Aug. 24, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/us/politics/cia-russia-midterm-elections.html

  "WASHINGTON — In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent
   and explicit warnings about Russia's intentions to try to tip the
   American presidential election — and a detailed assessment of the
   operation afterward — thanks in large part to informants close to
   President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial
   details.
   
   But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone
   silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about
   precisely what Mr. Putin's intentions are for November's midterm
   elections, according to American officials familiar with the
   intelligence.
   
   The officials do not believe the sources have been compromised or
   killed. Instead, they have concluded they have gone to ground amid more
   aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including efforts to kill
   spies, like the poisoning in March in Britain of a former Russian
   intelligence officer that utilized a rare Russian-made nerve agent.
   
   Current and former officials also said the expulsion of American
   intelligence officers from Moscow has hurt collection efforts. And
   officials also raised the possibility that the outing of an F.B.I.
   informant under scrutiny by the House intelligence committee — an
   examination encouraged by President Trump — has had a chilling effect
   on intelligence collection.
   
   Technology companies and political campaigns in recent weeks have
   detected a plethora of political interference efforts originating
   overseas, including hacks of Republican think tanks and fake liberal
   grass-roots organizations created on Facebook. Senior intelligence
   officials, including Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence,
   have warned that Russians are intent on subverting American democratic
   institutions.
   
   But American intelligence agencies have not been able to say precisely
   what are Mr. Putin's intentions: He could be trying to tilt the midterm
   elections, simply sow chaos or generally undermine trust in the
   democratic process.
   
   The officials, seeking to protect methods of collection from Russia,
   would not provide details about lost sources, but acknowledged the
   degradation in the information collected from Russia. They spoke on
   condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal
   classified information. A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment.
   
   To determine what the Russian government is up to, the United States
   employs multiple forms of intelligence, including intercepted
   communications and penetrated computer networks.
   
   
   Emergency crews investigate the site where Sergei Skripal and his
   daughter were found poisoned in Britain. C.I.A. informants in Russia
   are believed to be underground, fearing aggressive campaigns by Moscow
   to hunt spies.CreditBen Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
   
   The United States continues to intercept Russian communication, and the
   flow of that intelligence remains strong, said current and former
   officials. And Russian informants could still meet their C.I.A.
   handlers outside Russia, further from Moscow's counterintelligence
   apparatus.
   
   But people inside or close to the Kremlin remain critical to divining
   whether there is a strategy behind seemingly scattershot efforts to
   undermine American institutions.
   
   Spies and informants overseas also give American intelligence agencies
   early warning about influence campaigns, interference operations or
   other attempts to compromise the United States. That information, in
   turn, can improve the ability of domestic agencies, like the Department
   of Homeland Security and the F.B.I., to quickly identify and attempt to
   stop those efforts.
   
   Because clandestine meetings can take months to set up and complete, a
   lengthy lag can pass before the C.I.A. realizes a key source has gone
   silent, according to former officials. It is rare for the agency to
   discover immediately that informants have eroded or are running scared.
   Only after several missed meetings might C.I.A. officers and analysts
   conclude that a source has decided it is too dangerous to pass
   information.
   
   In 2016, American intelligence officials began to realize the scope of
   Russia's efforts when they gathered intelligence suggesting that Moscow
   wanted to use Trump campaign officials, wittingly or not, to help sow
   chaos. John O. Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., testified
   before the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017 about a tense
   period a year earlier when he came to believe that Mr. Putin was trying
   to steer the outcome toward a victory for Mr. Trump.
   
   Mr. Brennan described the broad outlines of the intelligence in his
   congressional testimony, and his disclosures backed up the accounts of
   the information provided by the current and former officials. "I was
   convinced in the summer that the Russians were trying to interfere in
   the election. And they were very aggressive," Mr. Brennan told
   lawmakers.
   
   This year, Mr. Coats issued a series of warnings saying the Russian
   government, and Mr. Putin in particular, is intent on undermining
   American democratic systems.
   
   At an appearance this month at the White House, Mr. Coats said
   intelligence agencies "continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign
   by Russia to try and weaken and divide the United States." He added
   that those efforts "cover issues relevant to the elections."

   

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   But officials said there has been no concrete intelligence pointing to
   Mr. Putin ordering his own intelligence units to wade into the election
   to push for a certain outcome, beyond a broad chaos campaign to
   undermine faith in American democracy. Intelligence agencies do not
   believe Mr. Putin has changed his strategy; instead, officials believe
   they simply do not have the same level of access to information from
   the Kremlin's inner circle.
   
   Intelligence collection appears to have suffered after Russia expelled
   officials from American diplomatic outposts there in retaliation for
   the United States removing 60 Russian officials this year, said John
   Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the C.I.A. who served in Moscow in the
   1990s and later ran the agency's Russia program.
   
   The C.I.A.'s Moscow presence, according to former officers, was always
   small, at least in light of the importance of the target, the
   difficulty of spycraft and the amount of counterintelligence the
   Russians dedicated to thwarting American spies.
   
   "The Russians kicked out a whole bunch of our people," Mr. Sipher said.
   "Our station in Moscow is probably really small now and they are under
   incredible surveillance."
   
   Mr. Putin has also said he is intent on killing so-called traitors,
   comments he made just ahead of the high-profile assassination attempt
   of the former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei V. Skripal.
   
   "The Russians are very focused and upset," Mr. Sipher said. "They have
   shown they are willing to kill sources."
   
   Informants close to Putin are very rare, according to current and
   former officials. The United States, in recent years, has had only a
   few, and at times been reliant on only one or two for the most
   important insights on Mr. Putin, according to former officials. If
   those people go silent for their own protection, it can make it very
   hard for the agency to look inside Moscow.
   
   The United States still should have a clear view of Mr. Putin's
   strategies and intention to interfere in the elections, said Michael
   Carpenter, a Russia expert and former Obama administration official. He
   pointed to fake social media accounts created as part of Russian
   intelligence operations that have drummed up support for white
   nationalists and the Black Lives Matter movement, and have supported
   far right, far left and pro-Russian candidates in the United States and
   in Europe.
   
   
   Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, issued warnings in
   recent weeks that Russia is intent on undermining American democratic
   systems. Erin Schaff for The New York Times
   
   "Clearly Russia is playing both sides of controversial issues precisely
   to sow chaos. But that said it is not just chaos, there are certain
   candidates Russia prefers to see in office," said Mr. Carpenter, now at
   the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. "The
   Russians are trying to support anti-establishment and pro-Russian
   candidates, not just in the U.S. but everywhere."
   
   Still, there is little doubt about the crucial nature of informants,
   said Seth G. Jones, who leads the transnational threats project at the
   Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy research
   organization.
   
   "It is essential to have sources coming from inside the government. It
   was during the Cold War and it is today," Mr. Jones said. "There are
   multiple ways to collect intelligence against your adversary, in this
   case the Russian government. But sources can provide you things you
   might not otherwise get, like documents, intelligence assessments."
   
   Sources can provide photographs of Russian documents and intelligence
   that are hard to intercept electronically, and that can help the United
   States figure out what Russia is targeting, not just with its election
   meddling but with its attempts to infiltrate financial systems, the
   power grid and other critical infrastructure, Mr. Jones said.
   
   The full reasons the sources have gone silent are not known. But
   current and former officials also said the exposure of sources inside
   the United States has also complicated matters.
   
   This year, the identity of an F.B.I. informant, Stefan Halper, became
   public after House lawmakers sought information on him and the White
   House allowed the information to be shared. Mr. Halper, an American
   academic based in Britain, had been sent to talk to Trump campaign
   advisers who were under F.B.I. scrutiny for their ties to Russia.
   
   Current American officials said there is no direct evidence that the
   exposure of Mr. Halper has been cited by overseas informants as a
   source of concern.
   
   But the officials said that some allies have cited the exposure of the
   informant and other intelligence leaks in curbing some of the
   intelligence they share. And former spies believe that, long-term, the
   exposure will hurt overseas collection.
   
   "Publicizing sources is really bad for the business," Mr. Sipher said.
   "The only thing we can offer people is that we will do anything in our
   power to protect them. And anything that wears away at that trust,
   hurts."

   Follow Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg on Twitter:@julianbarnes and @AllMattNYT.

   Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
   
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  A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 25, 2018, on Page A1
   of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. in the Dark On Russia's
   Plan For the Election. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe "