In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the FBI stepped up its recruiting efforts in the US, hoping to attract Russians who are dissatisfied or disillusioned with the war. People standing in close proximity to the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, can see the ads, which appear in Russian, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
One ad appeared in a Washington Post reporter’s Facebook feed when he was standing on the sidewalk next to the embassy’s walls on Wisconsin Avenue NW, but none appeared in his feed when he crossed the street.
“It’s a brilliant recruiting strategy because I think there’s probably a lot of folks within the Russian government that are incredibly dissatisfied with Putin’s war, and therefore it’s a great opportunity to see if any of those dissatisfied people could help us understand Putin’s intentions better,” Peter Lapp, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, told the Post. more
