The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) informs that the Russian FSB in Canada is trying to find foreigners who maintain contact with the intelligence services of various countries of the world and recruit them into the service of Moscow.
The Russian Federation is trying to find agents in Canada
The search for double agents takes place among immigrants from Russia and other countries that were part of or under the influence of the Soviet Union.
The Kremlin special service promotes its appeals, in particular, through Russian-language mass media in Canada, the message says.
For example, in March 2024, the relevant appeal of the FSB was distributed in the form of a leaflet supplement to the printed publication "Our Canada" — a newspaper that is distributed free of charge in stores of "European goods", Russian restaurants, the subway, certain schools, hospitals and residential complexes in the city of Toronto .
It is interesting that this publication positions itself as pro-democratic and anti-Putin, but it can only be a cover and a way of diverting the attention of local security structures.
What is known about the Russian Federation's attempts to recruit Ukrainians for cooperation
One Ukrainian soldier was fighting Russian soldiers on the battlefield when the Russians came for his parents. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, they were taken from their home and subjected to torture. Then a Russian agent contacted the serviceman and issued an ultimatum — to switch sides and spy for Russia, otherwise his family would suffer even more.
The Security Service of Ukraine reports that the soldier agreed to help Russia. Acting on the instructions of a Russian agent, he planned to add a poisonous substance to the water of a laundry complex used by senior officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, The Washington Post notes.
The agency announced that they foiled a plot to poison the Ukrainian military command in the Zaporizhzhia region. The serviceman was charged with treason and faces life imprisonment. This incident sheds light on the tactics used by Russian special services to recruit Ukrainians.
Moscow's original plan was for agents to infiltrate the upper echelons of Ukrainian society before full-scale war broke out, and then seize power from within. But most of these people were either rounded up by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies or fled on their own in the first months after February 2022. Now, after more than two years, there are fewer and fewer Ukrainians with pro-Russian sympathies, especially those who hold influential positions and want to help Moscow.
