‘Putin’s mistakes’ giving US ‘once-in-a-generation’ chance to recruit Russian spies, says CIA director
Dissatisfaction over Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, underlined by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed mutiny, has created a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity for the US to recruit spies, the director of the CIA has said.
William Burns said the aborted mutiny was a challenge to the Russian state that showed the corrosive effect of Mr Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Speaking at a lecture to the Ditchley Foundation – a charity focused on British-American relations – Mr Burns said dissatisfaction with the war was creating a rare opportunity to recruit spies, which the CIA was capitalising on.
William Burns said the mutiny showed the corrosive effect of Mr Putin’s war
“Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression,” Mr Burns said.
“That disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us at the CIA – at our core a human intelligence service. We’re not letting it go to waste.”
In May, the Kremlin said its agencies were tracking Western spy activity after the CIA published a video encouraging Russians to make contact via a secure internet channel.
The video in Russian was accompanied by text saying the agency wanted to hear from military officers, intelligence specialists, diplomats, scientists and people with information about Russia’s economy and leadership.
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Putin makes surprise appearance
Mr Burns said it was “striking” that Mr Prigozhin’s mutiny was preceded by months of open attacks on Mr Putin’s most senior military officers in videos in which he used a colourful variety of crude expletives and prison slang, which the Russian president did not answer in public.
“It is striking that Prigozhin preceded his actions with a scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale for the invasion of Ukraine and of the Russian military leadership’s conduct of the war,” said Mr Burns, who served as US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008 and was appointed CIA director in 2021.
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“The impact of those words and those actions will play out for some time – a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime.”
Mr Burns said the mutiny was an “internal Russian affair in which the United States has had and will have no part”.
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Earlier this week, Mr Putin thanked army and security forces for averting what he said could have turned into a civil war and has compared the mutiny to the chaos that ignited two revolutions in Russia in 1917.
The Kremlin has sought to project an image of calm stability since a deal was struck last weekend to end the mutiny, with Mr Putin discussing tourism, greeting crowds in Dagestan and discussing ideas for economic development.
But Mr Burns said the war has already been a strategic failure for Russia by laying bare its military weakness and damaging the Russian economy for years to come, while the NATO military alliance grows larger and stronger.
He said Russia’s “future as a junior partner and economic colony of China” was being shaped “by Putin’s mistakes”.
US
Harvard University sues over $2.2bn funding freeze after rejecting demands from Donald Trump’s administration
Harvard University is suing Donald Trump’s administration after it rejected a list of demands from the White House and had $2.2bn (£1.6bn) of government funding frozen.
The Ivy League institution, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is accused of ideological bias and allowing antisemitism during campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Trump administration, which began a review of $9bn (£6.7bn) in federal grants for Harvard in March, had demanded the university screen international students for those “hostile to the American values” and the end of all diversity, equality and inclusion programmes.
Protesters earlier this month at Harvard called on the university to resist interference by the federal government. Pic: Reuters
Students at a rally last week at Harvard against Donald Trump’s funding policies. Pic: AP
The university’s president Alan Garber has remained defiant and rejected those and other reforms, prompting the US President to question whether the university should lose its tax-exempt status.
Mr Trump accused the institution of pushing what he called “political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?'” in a post on Truth Social.
Harvard has seen student-led protests in recent days calling on the institution to resist interference by the federal government.
Harvard’s lawsuit, filed in Boston, described the research funding freeze as “arbitrary and capricious” and violating its First Amendment rights.
“The government has not – and cannot – identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the court documents revealed.
Harvard University has rejected a series of demands from the White House. File pic: AP
On Monday, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields issued a defiant response to the lawsuit: “The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end.
“Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.”
The Trump administration has also paused some funding for universities including Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern and Brown over the campus protests.
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But protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza is wrongly associated with antisemitism.
Mr Garber said the institution would continue to fight hate and fully comply with anti-discrimination laws.
A small encampment in support of Palestinians at the Harvard campus in April 2024. Pic: Reuters
The American Council on Education, a non-profit organisation with more than 1,600 member colleges and universities, supported the legal action by Harvard.
“It has been clear for weeks that the administration’s actions violated due process and the rule of law. We applaud Harvard for taking this step.”
US
Hundreds of passengers evacuated after Delta Air Lines Airbus A330 engine catches fire at Orlando International Airport
Hundreds of passengers have been taken off a plane after one of its engines caught fire as it was about to take off, airport officials have said.
The Delta Air Lines plane carrying nearly 300 people was pushing back from the gate at Orlando International Airport in Florida when smoke began to appear from the engine on its right wing on Monday.
There were no initial reports of injuries, the airline said.
Pictures and video published on social media showed flames and smoke rising from the Airbus A330 and passengers sliding down an escape chute as they left the aircraft.
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The Delta Air Lines plane is evacuated. Pic: @dylangwall/Reuters
The plane was heading for Atlanta, a journey of more than 400 miles with a flight time of around one hour and 40 minutes.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it is going to investigate what happened.
Flight 1213 had 282 passengers and 12 crew members, Delta said.
The airline said its flight crews “followed procedures to evacuate the passenger cabin when flames in the tailpipe of one of the aircraft’s two engines were observed”.
A social media user posted a video of what appeared to be a serious fire and flames coming from the Airbus plane, and another video of passengers exiting the plane via a slide.
Orlando International Airport said on X that the fire was on the ramp area and that the airport’s aircraft rescue and firefighting team responded quickly. Airbus did not immediately comment.
Delta said maintenance teams will check the aircraft, and the airline will bring in additional aircraft to help customers reach their final destinations on Monday.
It’s the latest in a series of high-profile aviation incidents that have raised questions about how safe flying is in the US.
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Last month, an engine on an American Airlines jet caught fire after the plane diverted to Denver, forcing the evacuation of passengers onto the wing of the aeroplane. The engine caught fire while taxiing to the gate.
In January, 67 people died after a mid-air collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport.
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