During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was notorious for its spying activities, which included everything from intelligence-gathering to cold-blooded murder. And, though the Kremlin may deny it, those activities never really ended after the collapse of the communist regime and the establishment of the Russian Federation; they have simply shifted focus and methodology as necessitated by the changing political, technological, and societal realities of the new millennium.

The dreaded KGB did not cease to exist either. Effective December 3, 1991, it was simply bifurcated: the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), like the American CIA, is in charge of foreign espionage activities; while the FSB (Federal Security Service) mirrors the American FBI in handling domestic security and counterintelligence.

But don’t let the change of names fool you. In May of 1993, a year and a half after the official restructuring, an agent in Moscow — apparently assigned to keep an eye on our U.S. humanitarian aid organization — still identified himself to me as being with the “KGB.”

And since the onset of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022, there has been a notable increase in disparate, seemingly disconnected attacks on Western nations. These have included localized explosions, fires, severing of undersea cables, and the occasional targeted abduction or assassination — all designed so as to offer deniability, but nonetheless bearing the undeniable trademark of the old KGB methods. These activities have become known as Putin’s “hybrid war.”

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But sometimes, even the best covert agents screw up — perhaps overlooking that one little detail, or underestimating the skills of their adversaries. And that is what recently happened to a top-secret unit of elite Russian intelligence agents known as Center 795.

According to an investigation undertaken by The Insider, Center 795 had been “designed to function as a ‘shadow army’ and given full autonomy, allowing the unit to bypass the Defense Ministry’s cumbersome and ineffective bureaucracy.” [Meduza, March 13, 2026.]

Consisting of some 500 carefully-selected and specially-trained officers, Center 795 is led by one Denis Fisenko, a veteran of the FSB special forces Alfa Group. According to The Insider, it was “designed to carry out everything from military assassinations and abductions targeting Kremlin critics abroad. However, the recent exposure of one agent is ‘bound to create lasting problems.’” [Id.]

That agent is Denis Alimov. He was arrested at the airport in Bogota, Colombia, on February 24, 2026 (ironically, the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), by Colombian authorities in cooperation with Interpol agents. He is being extradited to the United States in accordance with an arrest warrant issued by a U.S. court on December 18, 2025, charging Alimov with conspiracy to kidnap and commit murder, and with providing material support to terrorists. [Sania Kozatskyi, Militarynyi, February 26, 2026.]

What led to his downfall was a bad outsourcing decision. He has specifically been accused of planning assassination attempts against two or more prominent Chechen dissidents based in Europe, recruiting a triggerman to do the dirty work: one Darko Durovic, a Serbo-Croatian speaker living in the United States. Durovic was offered $1.5 million for each target successfully “deported to Russia,” dead or alive. [Meduza, op.cit.]

But there was a problem: Alimov and Durovic spoke different languages. Although their email messages were sent via an encrypted app, they had to rely on Google Translate to bridge the language gap, which created a plain-text trail on Google’s services . . . thereby enabling the FBI, under a U.S. surveillance warrant, to monitor their communications in real time. [Id.]

Genius.

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Gone are the days of passing handwritten messages written in disappearing ink. Modern communications have allowed business — whether legitimate or dirty — to be conducted quickly, remotely, and (sometimes) anonymously.

Sometimes . . . but not always.

Everyone — well, everyone but Denis Alimov, apparently — knows that in today’s cyber world, there are no absolute guarantees of privacy. And as clever as you may be, there will always be someone smarter.

So, for all of its years of experience, intensive training, and outlays of cash invested in its “elite” Center 795, the Moscow intelligence community has been dealt a hugely embarrassing blow to its dignity . . . not to mention the once-secretive nature of its “top secret” corps of assassins.

Whether this revelation will result in any sort of setback to Center 795’s future operations is unknown. But at the very least, it leaves Vladimir Putin with a trace of egg on his face.

And that always cheers me up.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/20/26