Recruitment Without Borders: How russian Secret Services Work Today

Estonian Internal Security Service (KAPO) has released its annual threat assessment. The main conclusion: russia is not only maintaining its intelligence pressure on NATO countries but is also methodically building an infrastructure that will outlast any ceasefire.

Last year, KAPO detected a record number of individuals acting on behalf of russian intelligence services. In the foreword, Director General of the Estonian Internal Security Service Margo Palloson emphasized: this is not evidence of a growing threat – this is evidence of the effectiveness of preventive work.

The fsb, gru, and svr mostly operate from within russia, without traveling abroad. Recruitment takes place at border crossings, via messaging apps, and on social media. Priority targets are individuals with access to information regarding support for Ukraine, aid logistics, and the activities of allies. KAPO paid special attention to the operational units of the fsb border service – a structure that rarely appears in public reports. Its officers work in civilian clothing, systematically profile individuals crossing the border, and recruit them as informants without any contact with foreign residenturas.

KAPO states unequivocally: sanctions are an effective deterrent. They have forced russia to devise complex and costly schemes to obtain Western technologies and components. At the same time, the agency points out the systematic use of Estonian jurisdiction to circumvent restrictions: shell companies registered in Estonia but effectively controlled from russia order dual-use goods from Western manufacturers and ship them through third countries. One-third of goods declared as transiting through russia do not reach their stated final destination. KAPO has raised the issue with EU institutions regarding a general ban on such transit and the coordination of national sanctions among Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland.

Demobilized russian combatants are identified as a separate risk. Among the nearly 200,000 convicts sent to the front from russian prisons, a significant portion has a history of war crimes, is ideologically anti-Western, and serves as a natural recruitment pool for both intelligence services and criminal networks. KAPO has begun adding such individuals en masse to the Schengen entry ban registry and is calling on other EU countries to join this initiative.