How America Appeased Putin

Excerpt from Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West When Spies was first published in 2023, it made front-page news with the chilling revelation that the Russian government had reached an advanced stage in planning an assassination on American soil. Russia's target was Alexander Poteyev, a former officer in the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service, whom the FBI and CIA had recruited as a spy. Poteyev betrayed one of Moscow's most closely guarded secrets: its network of deep-cover "illegals" living in the United States. His intelligence allowed the FBI to arrest ten Russian operatives in 2010, including the glamorous Anna Chapman. The United States exchanged the illegals for Western agents imprisoned in Russia. Among those released was Sergei Skripal, the former Russian military intelligence officer whom the Kremlin later attempted to murder in Salisbury, England, with the nerve agent Novichok. The CIA extracted Poteyev from Russia and resettled him under a new identity in the United States. Putin did not hide the fact that he wanted him dead. A Kremlin spokesman warned that Russia knew the traitor's identity and that an assassin would be sent after him. That was precisely what happened. Russian intelligence recruited Hector Fuentes, a Mexican microbiologist with a Russian wife and another family in Mexico. His handlers exploited his private life to blackmail him into identifying and surveilling Poteyev in Miami. They gave Fuentes $20,000 to rent an apartment there, but the operation foundered on poor tradecraft. Fuentes photographed the license plate of Poteyev's car and attracted the attention of security guards at Poteyev's apartment complex. When he attempted to leave for Mexico, American border officials discovered the photograph. Fuentes was arrested and disclosed the operation to US investigators. By authorizing the plot, Putin had crossed an important red line. Europe had already witnessed Russian assassinations and attempted assassinations, including the attack on Skripal. But the Kremlin had previously stopped short of authorising a killing inside the United States. Putin was now demonstrating his willingness to tear up the remaining restraints governing relations with Washington. Yet the American response was remarkably weak. The New York Times subsequently reported that Washington retaliated harshly, imposing sanctions and expelling ten Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover in April 2021. But according to someone intimately involved in the events, when the United States informed the Kremlin about the expulsions, its message did not even mention the planned murder. Instead, Washington concentrated on Russia's SolarWinds cyberattack. The penalties imposed were hardly sufficient to alter Putin's behaviour. Russian intelligence officers sometimes regard expulsion as a badge of honour. Putin had also insulated much of the Russian economy from American sanctions. A more serious response might have publicly exposed his immense wealth and corruption - subjects about which the Kremlin leader is notoriously sensitive. The assassination plot was only the first of four events that, viewed from Moscow, advertised American weakness. The second emerged in 2020, when reports alleged that Russian military intelligence was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American service personnel in Afghanistan. The story appeared during the presidential election campaign but then largely disappeared, supposedly because the US intelligence community could not reach a consensus about the underlying evidence. There should have been little doubt. John J. Sullivan, the former American ambassador in Moscow, has written that he examined the intelligence and found the proof persuasive. According to a source with knowledge of the events, American authorities possessed intelligence about a Russian officer travelling to Dubai to meet an Afghan contractor who facilitated payments to the Taliban. At the centre of the scheme was an Afghan-Russian gem smuggler, Rahmatullah Azizi, who acted as an intermediary. The intelligence reached the President's Daily Brief in February 2020. Donald Trump nevertheless denied having been briefed and dismissed the story as "fake news." As with the assassination plot, the Russian bounty program provoked no meaningful American response. The third demonstration of weakness was Washington's withdrawal from Afghanistan, negotiated by Trump and executed by Joe Biden in August 2021. The operation was handled disastrously. The world watched desperate Afghans cling to an American C-17 as it taxied along the runway at Kabul airport. Some fell to their deaths after the aircraft took off. A suicide bombing killed thirteen American service personnel and approximately 170 Afghan civilians. Soon the Taliban controlled the country once more. From the Kremlin's perspective, the images suggested that the United States no longer possessed the will or competence of a superpower. The fourth episode concerned Havana Syndrome - the mysterious neurological symptoms suffered by American officials since 2016. The US government repeatedly denied that a foreign power was responsible. A 2023 intelligence assessment judged it "very unlikely" that an adversary lay behind the incidents. Investigative reporting later revealed compelling evidence of Russian involvement. Members of Unit 29155, a Russian military intelligence black-operations squad, were present near several incidents involving American personnel. The operatives appear to have used some form of electronic weapon. Two reliable sources familiar with the matter told me that Russian involvement was regarded as almost certain, but that elements of the American intelligence community - particularly the CIA - had suppressed evidence pointing towards Moscow. Their apparent calculation was that doing nothing was preferable to revealing an attack that might constitute an act of war. In December 2024, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that a foreign adversary was increasingly likely to have caused at least some of the incidents. It criticised the previous intelligence assessment for lacking analytic integrity and being highly irregular in its formulation. If Russia was responsible, the lesson for the Kremlin was unmistakable: it had attacked American government personnel and escaped without punishment. Taken together, the assassination plot, the bounties on American soldiers, the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and Washington's refusal to confront the evidence surrounding Havana Syndrome all made the United States appear emasculated in the Kremlin's eyes. It was in this context that Putin decided to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. America appeared weak. The opportunity for military action had arrived. The analogy with Munich in 1938 has become an overused cliché. In this instance, however, it is unfortunately appropriate. Through their repeated failure to counter Russian aggression before February 2022, the Trump and Biden administrations effectively appeased Putin's worst ambitions. Putin's actions must be understood through his background as a KGB officer. He remains an unreformed Chekist, steeped in the mentality of the Soviet security services. He has never abandoned the KGB's view of the United States as Russia's "main adversary," nor his conviction that Washington and the CIA are engaged in a conspiracy to weaken Russia. His strategy has consistently been revanchist: to regain the territory, influence and prestige lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. His invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 follow logically from that worldview. According to Putin's distorted version of history, Ukraine is an artificial country created by hostile Western powers. He regards its conquest and reincorporation into Russia as an almost sacred duty. This is a gross misreading of history. But it is nevertheless what Putin believes - and Western governments must take it seriously. Putin and the hardliners surrounding him believe themselves to be at war with NATO and, above all, with the United States. That conviction will not disappear with a ceasefire in Ukraine. Nor will the danger necessarily vanish when Putin leaves power. The nationalist resentments he has exploited are larger than the man himself, while his regime has systematically eliminated alternative leaders. The West therefore faces a Russia problem, not merely a Putin problem. The events preceding the invasion of Ukraine offer an enduring warning: deterrence fails when threats carry no consequences. Dictators interpret silence not as prudence, but as permission. The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief. Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration. Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief