– Over 20 Russian defectors

– In Putin’s view, all of you are his enemies. Not Ukraine. Europe is the enemy, Norway is the enemy. The USA is of course the main enemy.

In a secret place in Switzerland, the former top diplomat Boris Bondarev sits in exile. He is among those who have turned their backs on Russia.

Bondarev was Russia’s ambassador to the UN’s Geneva office when he quit his job and sought asylum in Switzerland, in protest against the war in Ukraine.

Knowing how Vladimir Putin’s regime views defectors, he won’t call himself one.

– I see it as that I quit. I have not taken anyone’s side. I do not use the term “defector” in my case. In Russia, defection means leaving one side and joining the other. It gives very bad associations. For my part, I just say that I quit. I don’t work for any state, says Bondarev to TV 2.

He says that it was a relief to leave his job and seek protection in Switzerland.

– I must not take part in this madness. I don’t have to pretend that I support, like or think it’s okay to be an advocate of an aggressive war, he says.

From his exile, he uses social media as Twitter to oppose the regime in the Kremlin. He writes chronicles and allows himself to be interviewed.

– The Kremlin regime is corrupt. It is built on corruption and propaganda, he says of the regime.

– Now it is much easier for me to follow the war, follow what is happening and have opinions about it. About what actually takes place, he continues.

Bondarev believes that the West must be prepared for a military conflict with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Ukraine must therefore get all the assistance and support they need to ensure that Putin’s forces lose in Ukraine.

– Putin cannot afford to stop this war, because he cannot afford to lose this war. I believe that he is betting everything on this war, because he calculated that it would be short-lived and that Ukraine would be defeated within a few days, says Bondarev to TV 2.

Turning his back on Putin

In the shadow of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, a thriller of defectors and moles is secretly unfolding.

Russian diplomats, spies and soldiers turn their backs on Putin’s regime. They are sitting on very valuable knowledge of Russian diplomacy, intelligence activity and military affairs.

Last weekend it became known that the Russian mercenary Andrej Medvedev has applied for asylum in Norway. The Wagner defector made it across the Pasvikelva in Finnmark, and was apprehended by border hunters and police.

Lawyer Brynjulf ​​Risnes says that his client experienced these as dramatic minutes and hours.

– The way he tells this story, it’s like a spy thriller where you escape at the last minute, says Risnes to TV 2.

A human rights activist who helped Medvedev fears for the defector’s safety in Norway.

However, few of these stories have become public knowledge, says a British expert on Russian intelligence.

– This is a sensitive topic, says Bruce Jones to TV 2.

According to his sources, Russian officials have defected both to Western countries and Asia. They are fully aware that they risk their lives if they defect and become regime critics.

Hunting for “traitors”

After Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, a number of assassination attempts and liquidations have been linked to the Russian president. He is increasingly referred to in the Western media as a dictator.

In March 2022, Putin issued a disturbing warning to Russian citizens who “take the side of the West” during a televised cabinet meeting.

The hateful hunt for “traitors” is compared to dictator Josef Stalin’s campaign of terror in the 1930s.

– All peoples, and especially the Russian people, can always distinguish true countrymen from scum and traitors. They will spit them out like a small bug that happens to fly into their mouths, Putin said Reuters.

He alleged that the West would use Russian citizens as a “fifth column” – citizens who, during a war, turn against their own country and fight for the country’s enemy.

– The West will of course bet on a fifth column – on traitors. On those who earn money here but live over there. Not geographically, but in the head. They have a slave-like way of thinking, Putin said.

– I am convinced that this natural and necessary cleansing of society will strengthen our society and our solidarity, said the Russian president.

Cause a stir

A few months after Putin’s speech, it caused international attention when UN chief Bondarev quit his job.

In a farewell letter, Bondarev wrote that the lies had completely taken over in Russia.

– I have never been so ashamed of my country as since February 24, he wrote, referring to the date when the war started last year.

Bruce Jones, who has written for the well-respected British military magazine Jane’s for a number of years, says that there may be more than 20 Russian spies and diplomats who have defected since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Useful and valuable

Police Superintendent Dag Røhjell in the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) is an expert on Russian intelligence. He will not comment on the number or the Bondarev case, but speaks on a general basis about those who choose to drop out.

– I have registered that there have been some cases after 24 February, but in Norway I cannot comment on anything specific about it, says Røhjell to TV 2.

In order to get to know the other party better, from the inside, defectors are extremely useful and valuable for Western services, he says.

– We have to take care of defectors. They can give us valuable information, they can help our preventive work and not least contribute to revealing what goes on behind the walls in the Kremlin, says Røhjell in PST.

Insider knowledge

He believes that the Ukraine war may motivate civil servants to defect.

– You can see that serving authoritarian, totalitarian interests and systems is not worthy of respect, and that there are other countries that protect the individual and their fellow citizens in a better way. Then you change sides, more or less literally, says the chief officer.

PST’s assessment is that Russian interest in Norway and Norwegian intelligence targets is higher now than before the invasion of Ukraine, and diplomats and intelligence officers play a central role in this activity, he says.

– It is in the nature of the matter that the intelligence officers that we follow will have great knowledge and insight into the activities that they carry out, says Røhjell.

Moles

He says that defectors with inside knowledge can reveal the other side’s secrets. Historically, several defectors have been moles – spies on the inside – before defecting.

– The word mole is a Norwegian word, but it is derived from the English word pier which has historically been used to describe an inside spy. A more modern term is insider, which is basically the same thing. It is a person who works for someone other than their own, formal employer, explains Dag Røhjell.

The PST chief officer says that in this regard he noticed what NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during NHO’s conference recently.

NATO countries used spy satellites to uncover Putin’s invasion plans, but how could anyone really know what was going on inside the Kremlin?

– In NATO, we had precise, concrete intelligence about the force build-up, about the plans and intentions, Stoltenberg said in the speech.

Revealed Russian plans

Røhjell points out that Stoltenberg highlighted how the West worked with intelligence to reveal the Russian plans and warn of what they thought would be Russian behavior in Ukraine.

– He commented that we had good knowledge and good intelligence about what Putin’s intentions were. I find that a bit interesting, because intention is something that is talked about and discussed and is perhaps not laid down in so many secret documents. Then you have to be on the inside to have this type of insider knowledge, says Dag Røhjell.

– Is it conceivable that Stoltenberg was targeting some moles in the Kremlin?

– I don’t know that, replies the senior officer in PST.