📩 Espionage in academia

DEAR READER, 

The United Nations General Assembly concluded last week, and whether it was President Biden’s farewell address or the Haitian President sipping crispy cold water straight from the jug, there were a lot of notable takeaways. Here are several key points, particularly significant for Central and Eastern European countries. Chief among those was, of course, a call for Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory – with Eastern European countries reiterating their unwavering support for Ukraine and calling for the end to the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, addressed the assembly, criticizing the UN Security Council’s ineffectiveness in handling the war, pointing out that Russia’s veto power left the council powerless.

This was echoed in the speech of Lithuania’s president Gitanas Nausėda, who said that Russia no longer has a place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. In response, the Russian ambassador walked out of the hall during the speech.

The General Assembly also brought notable moments for the South Caucasian countries. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signaled optimism for peace with Azerbaijan, saying that diplomatic efforts are close to reaching a treaty over Nagorno-Karabakh, and pledged Armenia’s commitment to improving relations between the two nations. In contrast, Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was excluded (or disinvited) from a reception hosted for the UNGA, and the US side did not even meet the Georgian representatives, due to the recent actions by the Georgian government that have undermined democracy in the country.

Shifting gears, in this week’s expert opinion we explore a different topic: academia and espionage. While it is a known fact that some academics serve as paid consultants to push certain state agendas, outright espionage in academic circles is often overlooked. In January 2024, the University of Tartu informed its students and staff that Professor Viacheslav Morozov, a well-known scholar of international political theory, was under investigation for actions against the state. By June, Morozov was convicted for collaborating with the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and although he had no access to state secrets, he was gathering information on Estonia’s internal, defense, and security policies over the past decade. This case sparked us to ask Nate Ostiller, a news editor at the Kyiv Independent, to explore whether incidents like this pose a real threat to academia, and whether Eastern European countries should be more vigilant when vetting their academic personnel, or focus their counterintelligence efforts in this area.

On a similar note, the latest episode of Talk Eastern Europe with Mark Galeotti covers Russian spy networks operating in the West, so give it a listen by clicking the banner below 👇️ !

Enjoy reading this week’s “brief”!

When Viacheslav Morozov, a professor at Estonia’s University of Tartu, was arrested and later sentenced to six years in prison for spying for Russia, the news stunned the university. Professors and students alike wondered what information he may have collected, what his motivations may have been and if anyone had been potentially compromised. 

Outside of the university (and Estonia), the news barely made a splash. 

While those who worked and studied with Morozov pointed to his academic career, often focused at critiquing Russia from a post-colonial mindset, and said they were shocked that he was revealed to be a spy, analysts reacted differently. 

Indeed, some said they were surprised that the well-regarded Russian professor being outed as a Russian spy came as a surprise at all. 

Whether or not Morozov had access to state secrets, or if any information he could’ve gleaned from students was useful is missing the point, analysts said. 

Russian intelligence is far-reaching, and employs a type of shotgun method, in which a wide net is cast with the hopes of possibly obtaining something valuable. At the very least, Morozov could have identified (or recruited) like-minded students or staff members or planted seeds of doubt about the generally accepted opinions on Russia. At best, he could have used his academic training and influence to ascertain weaknesses in Estonian society and its security apparatus, and then report back to his handlers in Russia. According to Estonian prosecutors, Morozov did the latter. The extent of what recruiting, indoctrination, or other activities he may have done at the university proper is unknown. 

Espionage on university campuses is not new, and by no means is limited to Russia. The Morozov case is unlikely to be the last. In a 2019 report, the FBI warned that China is engaged in systematic spying at American universities, often with the intent of stealing intellectual property, research data, or other types of confidential information. 

Some involved Chinese students or visiting professors, but there were also cases of American students being recruited to spy for China. The espionage reportedly occurred alongside normal academic work. One element that stood out about the Morozov case was that, by all accounts, he was an accomplished, well-respected scholar, whose academic output is still valued even after his prison sentence. 

The Estonian intelligence service concurred that Morozov’s spying did not appear to have conflicted with his academic career. The details of the Morozov case illustrate that identifying and combating espionage in academia, Russian or otherwise, is no easy task. 

While there may be obvious cases in which someone clearly shows signs of problematic bias that could indicate they have been compromised, from an espionage perspective, it would certainly make more sense to mask those signs behind a facade of academic neutrality. Estonian prosecutors believed that Morozov was motivated by a sense of patriotism towards Russia, not by money, but likely due to his well-known views on Russia, he evaded suspicion. 

Automatically assuming that students or professors from countries adversarial to the West are potential spies is clearly not the right approach, but more strict scrutiny, especially concerning those trained in countries like Russia or China where the lines between government and academia are often blurred, may be a step in the right direction. The FBI’s 2019 report detailed a list of potential signs that a student or professor could be a spy, but many of the examples were obvious indications of suspicion, and others were arguably typical behavior of foreigners, such as quick or unannounced trips home or to other countries. 

Morozov reportedly met his Russian handlers on visits home, which unsurprisingly occurred beyond the oversight of the university. Recent revelations of Chinese espionage reaching high up into the administration of New York Governor Kathy Hochul are a sign that if the US government is routinely failing at counterespionage, it is a stretch to imagine that university staff, likely untrained to tackle the problem, will be up to the task.