Currently30 Nov 2025

Playing Spies

The words "spy ring" conjure up images straight from the enigmatic literary worlds of John le Carre and Graham Greene. But the recent prosecutions of a group of Bulgarians and the arsonists who set fire to a warehouse containing communications equipment for Ukraine, suggest a new, less glamorous front in the hidden world of espionage. Necessity is the mother of invention and the expulsion of Russian spies combined with sanctions on the technology of modern warfare have seen a move away from traditional "foreign agents". Communication platforms like Telegram are enabling the remote commissioning of low-level criminality - acts of sabotage and information gathering. Often, these outsourced agents are not even aware of who they're working for. They are, as the Director General of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum would have it "Playing Spies" and they are entirely disposable. Author and journalist Gordon Corera considers this new ecosystem of state interference and the dangerous players who are more Slow Horses than shaken not stirred. He hears from investigative journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing Dominic Murphy, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute Matthew Redhead and Daniela Richterova, Senior Lecturer in Intelligence at the Department of War Studies at King's College London. Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk Tim Passmore gives us his take on fears that Russia's drone war is having a direct impact on farmers in the UK.

Presented by Gordon Corera Produced by Kev Core

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