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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his pre-trial detention on espionage charges in Moscow, Russia, October 10, 2023.
Russia to try US journalist in secret
The upcoming espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich, the American journalist arrested last year in Russia, will be conducted in secret, according to Russian media.
Gershkovich, the son of Soviet emigrés, was reporting for the Wall Street Journal when he was detained on charges of collecting sensitive information about the Russian military. Russian prosecutors allege he was working on behalf of the CIA, but have presented no evidence publicly to support this claim. The Journal, along with the US government, says the charges are bogus.
Gershkovich’s detention has prompted talk of a possible prisoner swap with the West. The US has reportedly made several offers, but none has satisfied the Kremlin, which is seeking the release of one man in particular: Vadim Krasikov, a Russian spy serving a life sentence in Germany for the brazen, 2019 murder of a Kremlin opponent in Berlin.
The Germans, wary of setting a precedent that encourages Russia to use detained Westerners as bargaining chips, have so far shown little interest in releasing Krasikov. Whether the US might apply more pressure on Berlin remains to be seen. For now, there is no indication of how long Gershkovich’s black-box trial might last.
The MI6 secret service headquarters on the bank of the River Thames at Vauxhall in London.
Tinker Tailor Soldier AI
Microsoft has revealed that it has its own artificial intelligence that’s just for spies. Not you, not your friends, just spies (unless your friends are spies).
This marks the first time a company has deployed a large language model fully independent from the internet, Bloomberg reported. It’s a significant departure from existing models, and it’s designed to ensure safety and security for the US national security apparatus and its personnel. Still, it’s based on GPT-4, OpenAI’s industry-standard model that powers the paid version of ChatGPT. (Microsoft is the lead investor in OpenAI, having poured $13 billion into it.)
The model is “air-gapped,” meaning it’s cut off from the internet. But it’s also unique in that it doesn’t learn from the things people type in, and is careful to not spread secrets from one user to another.
“You don’t want it to learn on the questions that you’re asking and then somehow reveal that information,” William Chappell, Microsoft’s chief technology officer for strategic missions and technology, told Bloomberg. The system went live on May 9, but it still needs to go through testing and accreditation before national security agencies can use it.
Russia and the global order
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Lots of Russia news, as is so often the case over the last year. A little bit less frankly about Ukraine and more about Russia's position vis-a-vis the US and the global order, and I fear/suspect that that is increasingly going to be what we're going to be talking about going forward. One big piece of news, of course, this American journalist for the Wall Street Journal arrested on charges of espionage, Evan Gershkovich, it's going to be a secret trial. The Russians, having picked him up, said that they caught him red-handed. There is no presumption of innocence when you're grabbed on espionage in Russia.
The Americans will probably never find out what they're even specifically charging him with. And this is 20 years, up to 20 year sentencing, almost certain over the coming couple of months that he will be found guilty and then probably sent to a high security facility, could be tortured. I mean, this is the sort of thing that we've been seeing from Alexei Navalny over the past year, and is a clear step up in a direct action against American citizens by Russia. We haven't seen anything like this, frankly, since the '80s. So I mean since the heyday of the Cold War, '86 I think was when Daniloff was arrested. So in other words, before Perestroika, before Glasnost. This were the real old days of, as Ronald Reagan called them, Evil Empire. Well, that's clearly where US-Russia relations are right now. And unlike previous arrests, this meant to cause massive headlines and meant to be arbitrary, meant to chill the idea that Western journalists can conduct their business in Russia. They should obviously all leave. And also meant to show the Americans that the Russians are willing to take more direct, albeit incremental, steps beyond outside the Ukraine War directly.
If you go to Russia, if you listen or watch their state media, you'll see that they have been saying that they're fighting a war, not against Ukraine, but against NATO. And that's because NATO is providing the training, they're providing the equipment, they're providing the material, they're providing the intelligence. They're not involved in the fight directly, but they're certainly indirectly engaged in a proxy war after the Russians illegally invaded Ukraine. The Russian response to this is increasingly being willing to lash out against Westerners. And I think this is an important and significant escalatory move, even if it's one that has been calculated by the Russians not to lead to a precipitous American reaction, not the kind of thing that we want to see.
And then on top of that, this weekend, another terrorist attack, this in St. Petersburg, and where a cafe that had been owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the CEO, Owner of the Wagner Group, this paramilitary organization that has been doing a lot of fighting at Putin's behest, of course in Ukraine. And in early fighting, reasonably successfully, more recently not so much, in part because they've not been able to get ammunition, and they've been increasingly public about that and increasingly directly critical of the Russian Defense Ministry, of Russia's regular military forces and hierarchy and leadership, not of course directly in any way critical of Putin himself. But that fight has been growing, and so the fact that Vladlen Tatarsky, who is a very well-known military blogger, is incredibly hawkish, is hugely supportive of the war in Ukraine and has been supported by Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, he was assassinated, bomb went off, apparently hidden in a statuette that was presented to him by some woman who attended the talk.
Of course, immediately we're going to hear that this was the Ukrainians behind it. The Ukrainians, of course, were found to be behind the assassination attempt of Aleksandr Dugin, who is a strong sort of ultra nationalist, calling essentially for genocide of Ukrainians. And didn't get him, got his daughter instead, when at the last moment they switched cars. That's a terrorist attack, he's a civilian. But certainly wasn't intended to have collateral damage. Here you saw the video perhaps, I mean, it blew up the cafe and lots of other people were injured. It could have been the Ukrainians. I'm not saying it's implausible, but in this case, I think it's unlikely. I think it's more likely that this is a group that is not happy with Prigozhin increasingly attacking them. So perhaps either anti-war movement in Russia, or perhaps more likely pro-war movement in Ukraine, which is the vast majority of the Russian people at this point, but anti-Prigozhin, anti-Wagner group.
And the fact that there is this internal fight in Ukraine, ultimately that that's not likely to go well. And they haven't been able to take the town of Bakhmut after months of fighting, after lots of crowing by Prigozhin that this was imminent, and even Zelensky was able to visit in the past couple of weeks. Clearly an enormous embarrassment for Prigozhin, and this implies that he's under a lot of pressure. And frankly, I mean, there have been some rumors that he could be the next president of Russia challenging Putin. I think it's much more likely that he isn't with us for very much longer, that someone takes him out. But in either case, what we're seeing is more instability in Russia, more pressure on Russia.
The Russian economy performed extremely well compared to the sanctions that were leveled against it in the first year of the war. Indeed, the Americans have been surprised with how resilient the economy was. In the early days of the war, the US focused much more on economic sanctions and less on the provision of direct military support to the Ukrainians. Turned out the latter was much more important than the former in making a difference in the battlefield. And that was probably an early mistake by the Biden administration. But now that we're in the second year, we are seeing that Russian gas is getting stranded, Russia's having a harder time exporting oil, also at a significant discount, and the pressure on the Russian economy is growing. They've also lost an enormous amount of human capital, and of course the cost of the war itself. And they have to rebuild their own military industrial complex, which means they lose a lot of the contracts for export, which were a big source of hard currency for the Russians.
And we saw Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch, recently saying publicly that he sees the Russian economy under a lot more pressure. He wasn't saying that three months ago, six months ago. So all of those things imply that while the war in Ukraine is becoming somewhat more stable, not as many frontline attacks, frankly not as many civilians getting killed, and not as much movement territorially either in favor of the Ukrainians or the Russians. That may change with an imminent Ukrainian counter offensive, though even then, probably not all that much. But the position of Russia vis-a-vis NATO, we continue to see nothing but escalation, as we are in the 14th month of this war. And that, of course, longer term is much more dangerous geopolitically.
So that's a little bit for me. That's where I see right now. I hope everyone's going well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
TikTok is the ultimate propaganda tool, says tech expert Scott Galloway
Social media has revolutionized the way we connect with each other, but at what cost? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to tech expert and NYU Professor Scott Galloway, who thinks that Facebook and Meta are the ultimate espionage tools, collecting vast amounts of data that even intelligence agencies couldn't have dreamed of. He also suspects that the reason Facebook hasn't been regulated yet is that there may be some secret deal between them and the government security guys.
But when it comes to TikTok, Galloway thinks that the widely popular app, developed by a Chinese company, is the ultimate propaganda tool. He thinks the Chinese Communist Party would be dumb not to "put their finger on the scales" and adjust the content to make the West look bad. The scary thing is, we might not even know we're being played.
Galloway fears the younger generation is slowly being manipulated without knowing it, and they're feeling worse about America without realizing the progress we've made in various areas. TikTok a key culprit behind this trend.
Learn more about Galloway's eye-opening insights on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, airing on US public television stations nationwide, starting this weekend. Check local listings.
- Sen. Mitt Romney on TikTok: Shut it down ›
- Hard Numbers: Qatar gets snubbed, Croatia gets Schengen nod, Nigerians get less cash, Indiana gets tough on TikTok ›
- Hard Numbers: World Cup emissions, Russian mercs on TikTok, peak US inflation, Spanish letter bombs ›
- Graphic Truth: The world is crazy for TikTok ›
- The AI arms race begins: Scott Galloway’s optimism & warnings - GZERO Media ›
- Ian interviews Scott Galloway: the ChatGPT revolution & tech peril - GZERO Media ›
- The US vs TikTok (and China) - GZERO Media ›
- Canada is "eyes wide open" on China, says defense minister - GZERO Media ›
Hero or dangerous spy? The story behind the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan recently died as a national hero in Pakistan for helping his country develop its nuclear bomb in 1998 to rival India's nukes. GZERO World takes a look at A.Q. Khan, whom former CIA boss George Tenet once said was as threatening as Osama bin Laden, stole nuclear secrets from a Dutch uranium enrichment company to build centrifuges for Pakistan's atomic weapon. But he didn't stop there: in 2004 A.Q. Kahn was placed under the Pakistani version of house arrest for sharing his nuclear recipes with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. He was finally pardoned five years later, and remains as beloved by his countrymen as he is regarded elsewhere as one of the most dangerous men in history.
Watch the episode: Nuclear weapons: more dangerous than ever?
Podcast: Russia's Cyber Attack: An Act of Espionage or War? Jeh Johnson's Perspective
Listen: Former US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spent years trying to protect the United States against the kind of massive cyber attack that Russia carried out against American businesses and government agencies in the last year. But at what point should we view such a breach as more than a remarkable feat of espionage? When does it constitute an act of war? Johnson joins Ian Bremmer to discuss.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Does Jeh Johnson consider Russia’s cyber attack against the US to be an act of war?
"When I was at Homeland Security, I used to tell people to prepare and plan for the next attack, not the last attack. I used to try to encourage my people to think aggressively, to try to stay one step ahead of the enemy." Former US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spent years trying to protect the United States against the kind of massive cyber attack that Russia carried out against American businesses and government agencies in the last year. But at what point should we view such a breach as more than a remarkable feat of espionage? When does it constitute an act of war?
Johnson's conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of the latest episode of GZERO World, which begins airing nationally in the US on public television Friday, January 8th. Check local listings.
G-Zero Dark Thirty: Malcolm Nance
This week's episode is heavy on the cyber - and Ian's not just talking about Ted Cruz.
Former spymaster Malcolm Nance drops by to talk Russian espionage and ISIS' future home (hint: it's in the ☁).