With the planned reorganisation of Russia’s Western Military District, this country’s spying intensity towards Latvia may increase even more in the future, as mentioned in the 2023 report from Latvian State Security Service (VDD).
The army stationed in a specific region of Russia would be responsible for waging war in Nordic Countries, Baltic States and Poland in the event of a military conflict. The planned reorganisation provides for dividing this war district into two, dividing resources and forming brand new armed forces units.
It is expected that because of these changes Russian armed forces will need to develop new operational plans, which will likely require updating their intelligence about potential battlefield territories, Latvia included.
This year, the biggest threat to Latvia’s national security will still come from Russian special services. The main method employed by Russian special services to acquire information about Latvia will be recruiting local residents and foreigners, the report mentions.
People who regularly travel from Latvia to Russia and back, as well as to and from countries allied with Russia, are in the highest risk of being recruited. Russian special services will also continue attempts to recruit Latvian citizens on the internet.
Belarusian and Chinese special services are interested in Latvia as well.
However their operations do not reach the intensity and level of aggression of Russian special services, VDD predicts.
Cyber security threat level will remain high for the rest of 2024. Cyber groups employed by countries hostile to Latvia will continue performing various attacks to acquire valuable intelligence information, the report mentions.
In 2023 VDD commenced eight criminal processes over suspicion of espionage. This is so far the biggest number of such criminal processes commenced in a single year. Half of those criminal processes were commenced in cooperation with the Military Intelligence and Security Service. VDD also continued investigating criminal processes related to espionage initiated in previous years.
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