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SpyWeek Update: Terror Threat at UK Airbase, Putin Messing with US Elections, Hybrid War Against NATO as Trump Entertains Xi, Hackers Ransack FBI Files
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Russell Crowe, as CIA’s Russian mole Adolph Tolkachev, hands over secrets to his CIA handler, played by Harry Lawtey, in the forthcoming movie adaptation of “The Billion Dollar Spy.” Terror at UK Airbase: British police say they arrested several men Sunday on suspicion that they were trying to carry out of terrorist attack with explosives at an air base that the U.S. Air Force had been using to facilitate strikes on Iran. Several homes near the RAF Fairford base, which is about 90 minutes outside London, were evacuated. “Police did not provide further details on the men, who remain in custody, or what they were suspected to have done, NBC reported. “Work to establish the full nature of this incident is ongoing,” Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone said.
CIA Truth and Dare: “A new, previously suppressed book by a former CIA officer paints a satirical and slashing portrait of the agency’s deep-cover spying program as riven by systematic dysfunction,” veteran intelligence reporter Zach Dorfman, a recent hire by The Washington Post, scooped on Sunday. “‘The Pickle Factory,’ written by an ex-CIA nonofficial cover officer, under the pen name Sam R. Oyken, is billed as a work of fiction,” writes Dorfman. “Though often fantastical, it contains thinly veiled true-life details about the inner workings of the agency’s spying operations, according to former CIA officials.” It’s not a pretty picture.
CIA-KGB War on Screen: Filming has been completed on The Billion Dollar Spy, an adaptation of former Washington Post foreign correspondent and editor David E. Hoffman’s celebrated 2015 book of the same name. The film stars Russell Crowe as Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Russian military design bureau whose hatred for Soviet communism drove him to volunteer to spy for the United States, and whose disclosures weakened Soviet air defenses and saved the U.S. an estimated billion dollars in R&D costs. Interesting sidelight: An online Russian magazine recently published a version of the Tolkachev case by Vladimir Zaitsev, the late KGB agent who caught him. More details on that over at Deeper Look, a Substack by former CIA officer Michael Sellers, who—get this—was also arrested in Moscow by Zaitsev. Luckily, he lived to tell the story. Tolkachev was executed.
Mossad’s Revenge: Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu has long scapegoated his former intelligence chiefs and military leaders for a failure to predict and prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and kidnappings of some 1,200 Israeli concert goers and residents in communities surrounding Gaza. Apparently they’ve had enough. Within hours of each other on Friday, The New York Times and The Atlantic published detailed stories that appeared to obliterate Netanyahu’s postering.
The Times story, building on a Sept. 8 report in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz saying that “Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, the president of the United Arab Emirates, had given Mr. Netanyahu a secret warning that Hamas was planning a major attack,” added ominously that, the “warning from the Emirati leader…never reached the leaders of Israel’s security establishment, according to five former senior Israeli officials.” Not only that, when Netanyahu “gathered his security chiefs days later, on Oct. 1, 2023, for a meeting about the situation in the Gaza Strip, he never mentioned the warning, according to minutes of the meeting reviewed by The Times.” Then came The Atlantic’s story, which said Netanyahu was briefed on the brewing Hamas attack by no less than Abbas Kamel, “Egypt’s intelligence chief and one of the region’s most influential security officials,” who considered the situation so dire he flew secretly to Israel in a chartered Cessna on Sept. 26, 2023, landing at Ben Gurion “in an isolated section of the airport used for sensitive diplomatic and security missions.”
According to “Israeli, Egyptian, Arab, U.S., and European officials who were briefed about his visit after October 7,” wrote Atlantic staff writer Vivian Salama, Kamel warned Israeli officials that Hamas “appeared to be mobilizing for a major attack.” He stayed for only 67 minutes before taking off. “It’s not clear exactly with whom he met,” Salama added, and “[w]hat the Israeli officials did with Kamel’s warning remains an open question three years after the most devastating surprise attack in Israel’s history.” The reports came as a new documentary over alleged IDF war crimes in Gaza was already roiling Israel. Legislative elections that will determine the fate of Netayahu, who is still undergoing prosecution on corruption and other charges, are scheduled for Oct. 27.
Moscow’s Hybrid Creep: Denmark expects Russia to escalate hybrid warfare all across Western Europe in the coming months, its intelligence service said this week. Poland is already suffering “near daily” sabotage and cyber attacks and air incursions from Russia, said its state TVP. Germany recently blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack at the Leipzig/Halle Airport, prompting European Union members to call for new sanctions against Russia, Reuters said. England has also been afflicted with acts of sabotage directed at facilities enabling Ukraine supplies.
Hybrid warfare blends conventional military force with non‑military tools—such as cyberattacks, disinformation, economic pressure, and proxy actors—to achieve political objectives while staying below the threshold of open war. But Britain’s Sky TV thinks the unthinkable should be, well, thinkable. It’s launched a documentary series, The Wargame, which portrays senior U.K. politicians, military leaders and intelligence experts struggling to deal with a simulated Russian attack on British soil.
Don’t miss this week’s SpyTalk podcast featuring Sharon Weinberger, author of Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War, along with my usual natsec news yakfest with Michael Isikoff and Karen Joy Greenberg.
On Sept. 21 Sky TV launched The Wargame, a docudrama series that portrays top U.K. officials grappling with a Russian military attack. (Sky TV)Russian Disinfo Here: No less than the Trump administration's own intelligence community has flagged yet another covert Russian effort in the U.S. to “undermine public confidence in November’s midterm elections, using a familiar playbook in an attempt to inject chaos into the voting season,” according to The New York Times, which cited “U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” The officials “did not specify the efforts to influence attitudes online,” it said. “But experts in Russian disinformation have spotted some social media campaigns in recent weeks that use artificial intelligence to create fake videos of Hollywood celebrities talking about key battleground Senate races.” Indeed, Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn, author of How Russia Won, a new book on Trump & co’s malignant dealings with Vladimir Putin & co, cited several instances of manufactured social media posts denigrating Democrats in his Our Land column.
Gershkovich Spy Trap: Russia’s FSB devised a ploy to lure Evan Gershkovich into an espionage trap, the Wall Street Journal correspondent reveals in a riveting excerpt from his new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story, headed for publication on Tuesday.
Cuba, Si: The Trump administration is moving closer to a military confrontation with Cuba, reports James LaPorta at CBS News. “The U.S. Army Reserve is examining whether it can provide the military’s Southern Command with police forces, medical personnel and other support units within the next four months, according to an internal Army message reviewed by CBS News.”
FBI intel files hacked: The notorious criminal hacking group ShinyHunters claimed Tuesday it stole “almost all” of the FBI’s personnel files, including its assignments of intelligence agents and the applications of job seekers, according to news reports and the hackers’ own claims. A “sample [hack] shared with the media, first reported by 404 media, “appeared to contain names, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, social security numbers and emergency contact details for 5,000 employees at the FBI,” Reuters said. “The group may also have gathered details about some work assignments for agents and about some FBI units that are working on intelligence, security and counter-espionage efforts, including operations focused on both China and Russia.”
CIA’s Gold Bars Caper (cont’d): The inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community is looking into how a senior CIA ops officer deceived the top spy agency, NBC News reported. “The watchdog is reviewing the CIA’s vetting of David Rush, who had $40 million in gold bars stored at his home, and the scope of his alleged wrongdoings, sources say.”
Saudi Nuke Ambitions: The Salafi kingdom has not ruled out developing nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence assessed this week, according to The Washington Post. Critics say there are few measures in the deal to prevent the Saudis from covertly pursuing a nuclear stockpile. The nuclear deal signed by Trump in July allows the Saudis to enrich uranium to 20%—a short jump away from bomb-ready material, The Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 2.
China-Iran: Iranian customs records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that China sent about 1,300 air shipments of dual‑use components to Iran’s Defense Ministry in the first half of 2026, including “electronics, GPS devices, electric motors, and aircraft‑engine parts usable in drones and missile guidance systems.” No reliable word on whether Trump brought it up with Xi Jinping. Their meeting could be summed up in one word, said the Guardian: “Diplotainment.”
Sick By Any Other Name: National Defense Magazine, a military-industrial publication, is championing a DoD proposal to change the name of Havana Syndrome, aka Anomalous Health Incidents, to “Directed Energy Biological Effects,” or DEBE. The name change would reflect the conclusion of many experts that the mysterious set of ailments suffered by scores of U.S. diplomatic and intelligence personnel were caused by some kind of directed energy weapon, mostly likely wielded by Russians. “The designation is an explicit recognition that directed energy has matured to a level of technological readiness that enables practical weaponization,” the magazine editorialized. “Advances over the past two decades have collectively transformed the systems from experimental laboratory capabilities into deployable military assets,” it added, nearly drooling over future profits to be made. In 2023, the CIA concluded that the ailments were not caused by a directed energy weapon wielded by a foreign adversary. “This is a massive CIA cover-up, and I say this with great regret,” former senior CIA operations executive Marc Polymeropoulos, who experienced a debilitating incident in Moscow years ago, told CBS in March. “It’s an organization that I loved. I believe in the mission. I was really good at this job. To this day I want to see the CIA operate in a strong and effective manner.”
NatSec news these days seems more frightening than ever. Take AI alone: Some insiders say it could destroy all of humanity by the end of the decade. (Sharon Weinberger throws cold water on that.) In any event, we’re determined to get to the bottom of its use and misuse by US intelligence. You can help by taking out a no-obligation, 7-day free trial. Reporting is really a team sport. Thanks!
