There’s a basic distinction among spy services worldwide: those that conduct assassinations and those that don’t.
asserted
that → ’ → assassinations
America’s spy outfits, led by the Central Intelligence Agency, are in the former category.
asserted
outfits → lead → category
Today, the CIA tends to assassinate people with missile-armed drones and similar high-tech stand-off methods.
asserted
CIA → tend → drones
Not all countries do it from a distance, however.
asserted
countries → do → distance
Some countries still conduct assassinations the old-fashioned way, up close with guns, bombs, and even poisons.
asserted
countries → conduct → guns
No country today is more notorious for carrying out such hits abroad than Russia, where this dark art is termed “wetwork.”
asserted
art → carry → Russia
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s spy agencies, what Moscow terms its “special services,” have witnessed a wetwork renaissance.
asserted
Moscow → term → renaissance
One that has seen enemies of the Kremlin meeting unnatural ends in numerous countries over the last two decades.
asserted
enemies → see → decades
Some of the most notorious examples of Putin-era wetwork have occurred in the United Kingdom, including the fatal 2006 poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a regime critic and former officer of the Federal Security Service, who succumbed to a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210.
asserted
who → occur → polonium-210
In 2018, Moscow assassins nearly killed Sergei Skripal, a former officer with Russian military intelligence, and his daughter in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok.
asserted
assassins → kill → agent
The Skripals barely survived their poisoning, while an innocent British bystander did not.
asserted
bystander → survive → poisoning
Until now, however, it was generally assumed that Moscow demurred from executing such hazardous, high-profile operations on American soil.
asserted
Moscow → assume → soil
The Department of Justice last week released a previously sealed indictment against five individuals who were working for Moscow with the aim of assassinating a U.S.-based critic of the Putin regime.
asserted
who → release → regime
All the accused are outside the United States and beyond the reach of American justice.
asserted
accused → accuse → justice
This nefarious group, termed the “RIS Network,” or “Russian Intelligence Service Network, by the Justice Department, had as its ringleader 63-year-old Yuri Khrameev, a special services veteran known as “Colonel Yuri.”
asserted
group → term → Yuri
He was backed by his 27-year-old son Kirill Khrameev, an FSB officer, as well as 35-year-old Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a dual Russian-Cuban national living in Russia.
asserted
He → back → Russia
A dance teacher in northern Russia, Romagoza Durruthy, was previously involved in a GRU sabotage network operating in Europe, including planned terrorism against Latvia.
asserted
teacher → involve → Latvia
Two lesser network members, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, a 35-year-old Cuban, who goes by “Viking,” and Angel Eduardo Castro, a 22-year-old Venezuelan national, allegedly served as recruiters for the group, giving its three core members a degree of protection from exposure — at least in theory.
uncertain
who → go → theory
Although the RIS Network never assassinated its target (who isn’t named but is known to live around Washington, D.C.), there was considerable planning involved here.
asserted
who → assassinate → Washington
In the summer of 2026, the network attempted to spy on its target, but finding the right assassin was more complicated.
asserted
finding → attempt → assassin
An offer of $40,000 to conduct the hit on the dissident failed to find an eager killer.
asserted
offer → conduct → killer
The Cuban Suarez claimed to have “people in Mexico” who could perform the hit, but the hit was delayed.
uncertain
hit → claim → hit
His efforts to find a suitable hitman didn’t bear fruit before the unsealed indictment blew the whistle on the network’s planned wetwork.
asserted
indictment → find → wetwork
The good news in this case is that this network never got particularly close to assassinating anyone.
asserted
network → get → anyone
The network’s planning had evil intent but appears rather amateurish on the whole, as is so often the case with the Putin regime’s wetwork and related sabotage these days.
asserted
case → have → wetwork
In particular, the GRU has become notably aggressive in recent years in its often-indiscriminate violent plans against the West.
asserted
GRU → become → West
This involves hiring disposable murderers and saboteurs online.
asserted
This → involve → murderers
These tend to be amateurs who fail to perform as Moscow wants, yet are deniable when things go wrong, as they often do.
asserted
they → tend → ?
This then allows Moscow to pretend, however absurdly, that it had nothing to do with the murderous plotting.
asserted
it → allow → plotting
There’s no room for complacency, however, since although this particular Russian wetwork plot was compromised by its own amateurishness, the next Moscow hit team may prove more proficient.
uncertain
team → ’ → amateurishness
One major problem is that U.S. counterintelligence remains unacceptably underfunded and poorly organized.
asserted
counterintelligence → remain → ?
The American spy-hunting business remains the intelligence community’s red-headed stepchild, as it’s been since the 1970s, when liberal muckrakers smeared counterintelligence as somehow nefarious and un-American.
asserted
muckrakers → remain → counterintelligence
There are important counterintelligence reform ideas in Congress, particularly among wise Republicans, but nothing has happened yet.
asserted
nothing → be → Republicans
Until it does, we will be catching Moscow’s assassins as much by luck as by skill.
asserted
we → do → skill
Per the hoary cliché, the good guys have to get lucky every time, while the bad guys need only get lucky once.
asserted
guys → have → cliché
Moreover, gloating by some Democrats about this plot having something to do with President Donald Trump’s accommodating relationship with Putin lands wide of the mark.
asserted
plot → gloat → mark
The Left’s advocacy that this new plot reflects newfound Muscovite adventurism and “the rules have changed” is simply untrue.
asserted
rules → reflect → adventurism
Over a decade ago, in the heart of Washington, a close ally of Vladimir Putin died under mysterious circumstances.
asserted
ally → die → circumstances
That was Mikhail Lesin, the 57-year-old founder of Russia Today (now RT), a true Kremlin insider, who got on Putin’s bad side and fled to the U.S. for protection.
asserted
who → get → protection
Instead, in early November 2015, Lesin was found dead in his Washington, D.C., Dupont Circle hotel room, little more than a mile from the White House.
asserted
Lesin → find → House
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
