I’m just spitballing here, but I’ve done this kind of thing.
- Establish a program where any defecting Russian soldier will receive a bonus of $20k USD and a work visa in one of a list of countries.
- Defecting with military equipment increases the bonus based on the combat and the intelligence value of the equipment. 30-some years ago, I believe we were offering $1M to anyone defecting with one of the new MIGs. I think we got a couple out of that program.
- Defection bonus can also scale with rank and intelligence value of the soldier. Defecting general? $1M. Defecting colonel? $250k. More money for info, and you can land a job as a “consultant” with western intelligence. Maybe throw in a condo.
- The Russians are quite famous for punishing or executing innocent family members in revenge for such actions. They will have difficulty doing so if the number of defectors are in the thousands to tens of thousands, but the initial people will likely be those who have less of a concern there.
- Expend funding for in-country intelligence assets to construct an Underground Railroad for defectors. Assign an initial $5B USD to develop networks in major cities to smuggle the families of defectors out of the country with arrangements made for visas etc.
If you were to sit down with a spreadsheet right now, you could come up with a rough estimate for the cost of eliminating one Russian asset - soldier, tank, air defense system, whatever. A program like the above would reassign those costs, with the additional benefit of saving the lives of Ukrainian troops and civilians (because it’s non-combat attrition) and having a potentially cascading effect (the more people that quit, the more others are likely to quit since it reduces both manpower and morale).
I don’t think it’s a big deal yet (although morale is a big deal), but it possibly could be.
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Travel to Russia
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Join army
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Defect and get paid
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Purchase new identity
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Repeat from 1
- DNA and fingerprints for biometric records
- I would be willing to bet the budget of the program that the number of people willing to go through that would not even be a rounding error.
Ok, so get chemo, a bone marrow transplant and burn off my fingerprints while in Russia. No downsides!
I was already out at Step 1 but you do you.
Okay, this is only barely related to what you’re suggesting, but I always found it amusing. I went through a “detective” phase as a kid and got a bit obsessed.
I read an account of a man who thought he had that kind of thing figured out. He used rubber bands to cut off the blood supply to his fingertips, then used a razor to repeatedly scrape off the skin in order to eliminate his fingerprints before launching his criminal career.
He was caught and identified because the scar patterns on his fingertips were unique fingerprints.
You forgot step 2b: survive brutal hazing without getting killed, mutilated or crazy.
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Travel to Russia.
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Join army.
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Sent to frontlines.
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Die from stray.
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Step 1. Join FSB (secret)
Step 2. Get promotion (easy)
Step 3. “Defect” (Paid)
Step 4. “Consult” the USA (Paid more!)
Step 5: Go home a rich hero, having served your country to the utmost as a spy (Money+honors+intelligence)
No matter how much Iraq my brain I can’t think of a single intelligence asset that exploited gullible American politicians.
They’re already offering money to defect. And more if you bring big equipment.
I know. I’m thinking of a full court press kind of thing integrating US and foreign intelligence services. Something that goes beyond airdrops of flyers and Tokyo Rose broadcasts.
The US has seen the potential efficacy of targeted full-on intelligence operations to create social-political disruptions. We’ve also seen (admittedly not in living memory) the political effectiveness of the Underground Railroad. I think that the operational disruption would go beyond the loss of manpower, especially if it included senior officers.
It’s harder to operate in Russia than in the US, but today’s Russia also isn’t exactly North Korea. They’re kind of a kleptocracy, which creates its own vulnerabilities.
Who was defecting with Migs 30 years ago? The Chinese?
Sorry, I’ve reached the age where 1990 is permanently 20 years ago. The incident I was thinking of was a Sov pilot defecting in 1976.
There had been a handful of other incidents made public. I’m unaware of the reverse happening anywhere. They did manage to shoot down and capture a a U-2 in 1960, which was both a major intelligence coup and a diplomatic catastrophe.
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No, they probably mean ‘less’ such that the initial deserters will be people without living relatives or with estranged families or family living abroad.
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I know there are stories of criminals, like murders and rapists, were getting released as long as they joined the military. Some of the less savory types might either not care about others or not have them so it’s a moot point.
I definitely read OPs statement both ways, the way I explained above and then like you, where I thought it was a typo.
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i’m curious as to how reliable information about this has been getting out.
First reports are not always trustworthy. That said, we know conditions for the Russians are terrible so desertion isn’t unlikely.
Did you read the article? The numbers quoted are from a group that tries to help defecting Russian soldiers.
On Tuesday the Moscow Times quoted the Georgian-based group Idite Lesom that aids troops attempting to leave Putin’s army, saying it had experienced an 89 percent increase in requests for assistance over the past few months.
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Grigory Sverdlin, founder and leader of the group said that between June and August it had received 305 requests for help but between September and November this number had almost doubled.
They go through that in the article. I’m sympathetic, but it looks like a lot of spin on shaky statistics.
Is it reliable?
Its not, the Kyivpost is CIA garbage like Radiofree Asia was
Winter is here. I don’t blame them!
Kyiv Post has publicly received funding from the US state-backed National Endowment for Democracy. Allan Weinstein, cofounder of the National Endowment for Democracy, said in an interview with the Washington Post"A lot of what we (the NED) do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
Not sure if a news source backed by what is, by their own admission, the public-facing branch of the CIA would be considered “reputable.”
According to the New York Times, the NED has been caught funding a opposition groups in France to undermine the ruling party. The NED was also implicated in helping to fan the fires of the Arab Spring.
ProPublica has this to say: “The National Endowment for Democracy was established by Congress, in effect, to take over the CIA’s covert propaganda efforts. But, unlike the CIA, the NED promotes US policy and interests openly.”
I see no reason to doubt the numbers from the Georgian group that Kyiv Post cites, but that is in spite of it being reported in the Kyiv Post, not because of it. NED-funded sources are literally spreading propaganda, and any source that’s willing to take money from the NED is showing a willingness to spread propaganda.
