Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) RF; Russian: Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации, tr.Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, IPA: [fʲɪdʲɪˈralʲnəjə ˈsluʐbə bʲɪzɐˈpasnəstʲɪ rɐˈsʲijskəj fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨɪ]) is the principal security service of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) which was reorganized into the FSB in 1995. The three major structural successor components of the former KGB that remain administratively independent of the FSB are the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Protective Service (FSO), and the Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President of the Russian Federation (GUSP).
The Russian Federation is known to possess or have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and chemical weapons. It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Oleg Danilovich Kalugin is a former KGB general. He was during a time, head of KGB political operations in the United States and later a critic of the agency. After being convicted of spying for the West in absentia during a trial in Moscow, he remained in the US and was sworn in as a citizen on 4 August 2003.
Power projection, in international relations, is the capacity of a state to deploy and sustain forces outside its territory. The ability of a state to project its power into an area may serve as an effective diplomatic lever, influencing the decision-making process and acting as a potential deterrent on other states' behavior.
Konon Trofimovich Molody was a Soviet intelligence officer, known in the West as Gordon Arnold Lonsdale. Posing as a Canadian businessman during the Cold War he was a non-official (illegal) KGB intelligence agent and the mastermind of the Portland Spy Ring, which operated in Britain from the late 1950s until 1961.
Russia and the United States maintain one of the most important, critical and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and space exploration.
Gordon Corera is a British author and journalist. He is the BBC's Security Correspondent and specializes in computer technology.
STONEGHOST or "Stone Ghost", is a codename for a network operated by the United States' Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for information sharing and exchange between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Some sources say that New Zealand is also participating, and that Stone Ghost therefore connects, and is maintained by the defense intelligence agencies of all Five Eyes countries.
Russian espionage in the United States has occurred since at least the Cold War, and likely well before. According to the United States government, by 2007 it had reached Cold War levels.
Luke Daniel Harding is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was based in Russia for The Guardian from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on 5 February 2011, he was refused re-entry to Russia and deported the same day. The Guardian said his expulsion was linked with his critical articles on Russia, a claim denied by the Russian government. After the reversal of the decision on 9 February and the granting of a short-term visa, Harding chose not to seek a further visa extension. His 2011 book Mafia State discusses his experience in Russia and the political system under Vladimir Putin, which he describes as a mafia state.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
Oleg Yevgenyvich Belaventsev is a Russian naval officer (Vice-admiral) and political figure.
The Second Cold War, Cold War II, or the New Cold War are terms that refer to heightened political, social, ideological, informational, and military tensions in the 21st century. The term is used in the context of the tensions between the United States and China. It is also used to describe such tensions between the United States and Russia, the primary successor state of the former Soviet Union, which was one of the major parties of the original Cold War until its dissolution in 1991. Furthermore, the term is used to describe tensions in multilateral relations between two or more groups of nations. Some commentators have used the term as a comparison to the original Cold War. Some other commentators have either doubted that tension would lead to another "cold war" or have discouraged using the term to refer to any current tensions.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Special Counsel's report, made public in April 2019, examined numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report written from June to December 2016, containing allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. Five years later, it was described by mainstream media as "largely discredited", "deeply flawed", and "largely unverified". Some key dossier allegations were corroborated in the ODNI's 2017 assessment, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyber attacks on the Democratic and Republican parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and spies.
This is a timeline of events related to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Maria Valeryevna Butina is a Russian politician, political activist and former entrepreneur who was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia within the United States.
Intercept: The Secret History of Computers and Spies is a 2015 non-fiction book by the historian and BBC journalist Gordon Corera about the history of digital covert operations. It examines the history of digital surveillance and code-breaking, and how it has transformed into modern cyberwarfare.
