w1986

[w1986]

Harassment by Russian security services

I got into trouble with the Russian security services.

This happened approximately in 2015, 2016. The original motivation for the Russians initial approach to try and coerce/intimidate me is not known for sure, but it's most likely related to a political blog I was writing here in Finland from 2013 to 2016 approximately. The other equally plausible candidate reason, has to do with my brother, who I think is almost certainly working to benefit the Russians. He is a fairly big chief in the banking business, responsible for a dozen or so banks in the Southern Finland.

What was it like at first getting into trouble with the Russians?

Preparatory phase I believe there was a groundwork phase in this which involved collecting so called "Kompromat" or material to be used in extortion later. This kind of extortion doesn't work on me, due to my personality. But of course they couldn't know that in advance. Anyway, I think I got under surveillance by the Russians somewhere around 2014, but I did not suspect anything at this point, and there was no cue whatsoever that would've aroused my suspicions at the time.

Soft initial approaches or probes The first concrete interactions with the Russians occurred somewhere around late 2015 and early 2016. This involved fairly subtle things like people contacting me on social media and saying weird stuff, but I didn't really suspect this had something to do with the Russians, I only came to realize this later. Additionally in the spring of 2016 there was some in person approaches which were fairly distant, but they were kind of like testing how I would respond to certain things I'll skip explaining this time.

Actual recruitment/whatever effort When I went to this construction school which lasted 2 years it was also attended by an Estonian-Russian person named Andrei. He was first of all a really big guy, somewhere between 190-200 cm, and probably well over 100 kg. He wasn't a jerk or anything, though, but his behavior was a bit strange. Anyway I believe the plan for the Russians was to recruit me, and that it was this Andrei persons task to get it done during this 2 year education. And this involved subtle harassment and intimidation, like veiled threats and such, and they were pretty tricky, like bystanders wouldn't detect it very easily. This was achieved by using material collected elsewhere to substantiate the intimidation, basically hacking my computer and monitoring my online activities, and that sort of thing, provided material to use for the intimidation effort.

This I think didn't go so well, because first of all i suspected something was going on, but I didn't know what. But my initial attitude was that I tried to reject these approaches. Like when this Andrei person would ask me to do something with him, or something like that, I basically politely declined.

Escalation of matters So basically I started thinking that this person is probably related to the Russians and their security services, and later I came to realize the things that had happened earlier, were probably related to the same problem. First of all I started talking to people saying that this person is probably related to the Russian intelligence, like the KGB/GRU type of people. I didn't really know much about the entire topic at the time, but I think the Russians tried to misdirect me and kind of lead me to think that it's about something else. Well this kind of backfired too, coz I started talking about how they're trying to misdirect me, or basically something like that. And I wasn't 100% sure yet, that this was really the correct explanation for what was going on and as I developed alternative theories, like maybe I was just targeted online by some hacker, and the rest is just some weird coincidence.. Well the Russians tried to reinforce that, by trying to mess with me online making it look it was just some random hacker. Except, it didn't look like it was a random hacker, but instead, more like someone was trying to make it seem like that. So that didn't work so well.

This whole thing also caused me some anxiety so I tried to seek some help regarding that. Luckily though, or unluckily, depends how you look at this, I was already rather well-read on psychology and such matters, like I had watched/listened to hundreds of hours of lectures, read several books, and could name various disorders and understood a lot of stuff related to that. I wasn't exactly an expert in that I didn't have a formal degree, but for a random person, I was fairly knowledgeable.

Discrediting strategy So basically when I sought help for this anxiety problem, the Russians picked up another approach, they decided to try and make it look like maybe I was just imagining it, and instead incorporated these aspects into the harassment, which kind of sounded like if you'd try to tell someone about it, they might think.. well is that really what's going on? Or is that just what this person thinks is going on?

So that became their number one approach. Regardless of what I would believe about the case, they wanted to make sure, no one else would believe me. Or at least they'd be suspicious and think there are some alternative explanations to what's going on.

This sort of worked, except, it didn't, because I never really started to question these entirely logical and empirical observations, but it worked in the sense that if I would go through these events only superficially or not to a great enough detail, then people wouldn't understand why it is that I even thought it is the Russians. Like I would literally have to explain details about what this Andrei person said, and what some other person did, and what happened online at the same time, etc.

Literal death threats So the most concrete of all the threats and intimidations I've received, was during a time when this Andrei person said literally the following phrase - although it was in Finnish - "We are going to kill you". So, you might think maybe there was some other reason for him to say that, or isn't that just kind of odd approach for intelligence to begin with? Like they wouldn't be that foolish, would they? But it was complacency from the Russians part, they had this context set up that would kind of work as a cover story, but regardless it wasn't a very smart thing to do. Whatever their approach is, the fact to the matters is, that there's a person I think is probably related to the Russian security services, who I think has tried to intimidate me, who is Russian speaking and ethnically Russian, and who literally told me they're going to kill me. Whatever explanation you're trying to cook up for this, well.. it would be kind of strange that this had nothing to do with the Russians, yet at the same time, this event took place.

There were some other threats but it was more like a psychological game, in which the Russians tried to balance the threat so that, it wasn't exactly clear if they really wanted to threaten me, or was it more like they just wanted to make a subtle enough threat that I could interpret it that way, but when I would try and explain it to someone else, they might be like.. well maybe that wasn't an actual threat, like maybe it was just a coincidence? And so, I didn't think it was with intent, it was more intimidation, without truly meaning the threat aspect.

Contacting the authorities Anyway this whole problem developed several years and there are all kinds of things that happened, which of most I'm just skipping, but basically I contacted the police and the counter-intelligence for the first time in February 2020. So that's already over a year ago, but considering how early this issue actually started, it's quite late.

This is mostly because I didn't want to contact the police. I figured that if I'm dealing with the Russians, my problems might just get worse if I start to make a really big fuss out of it. Additionally I wanted to create an incentive for the Russians to leave me alone, and sort of allow this thing to de-escalate. However, that wasn't what the Russians wanted, and so the things eventually escalated anyway. And I went to contact the police, regardless of thinking that rationally, it's probably not the correct decision.

However, when I went into the police station, the Russians had arranged for a couple of people to wait outside the office and subtly try and discourage me from making my report. Well, I ignored them. The police officer was dismissive and their attitude was that I should probably just leave, until I mentioned that well there was also this literal death threat, which kind of impelled them to have to try and take it more seriously. But anyway, they just gave me like an email address, and I figured that if the police can't handle this case, I mean they clearly had zero structure or policy in place, which would allow them to be capable of dealing with something like Russian intelligence. So I basically just gave up on trying to deal with the regular police. Although I did call the police later, and explained generally what was going on, but they said they can't do anything, because of the nature of the case. Like there's too many people involved, the part played by each individual is too small, they can't really investigate a single person, and they don't know where to start. I mean they just couldn't do anything.

However, I also contacted the counter-intelligence. And well, my first impression was that the Finnish counter-intelligence is pretty amateurish and hasn't even taken into consideration really basic stuff, like how do you actually submit information about a case like this, and they hadn't made it possible, to give information, in a way that was secure. Like basically they said that okay tell us about your case and send us an email. So, like isn't there a small chance there would be a motivation for revenge, from the Russians, if I just start emailing details about their activities to the counter-intelligence?

Also how do I even know that the emails reach their destination? And that the contents are correct? I mean I've had some cyber harassment in the process, which involved my computer being clearly hacked. It seems like this could be an issue.

But anyway, they didn't have a solution for that, and didn't even seem to understand this is a problem. So I guess our Finnish civilian counter-intelligence, just kind of sucks, unfortunately.

But regardless of me being severely disappointed in our society, and in our authorities, I did eventually supply them with some details about the case, and they told me I should supply them more details, which I've considered doing, and for various reasons have sent some emails and such.