Former deep-cover Russian agent Andrey Bezrukov gave a speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) about future threats to Russia. He began by evaluating that Russia is embroiled in a new type of war that isn’t about territories but attrition. The West wants to avoid a nuclear war with Russia by “boiling the frog” through the gradual intensification of its provocations. Bezrukov believes that this is part of a new World War that began in Ukraine, spread to Iran, and might end in East Asia.
As regards the first front that’s aimed against Russia, he said that the West seeks to neutralize its nuclear forces through space-based systems (in an allusion to the Golden Dome) and more “Operation Spiderwebs” like the one that targeted Russia’s nuclear triad from inside the country last summer. The next goal is politically destabilizing Russia, to which end AI can be used to overload the system through infinite inputs at a critical moment so that it’s paralyzed and can’t make adequate decisions in a crisis.
Moving along, Bezrukov pointed to attacks against critical infrastructure as another one of the West’s goals, opining that Starlink makes them incredibly accurate and admitting that “we were not prepared” for this development. Rounding out the future threats to Russia is self-explanatory biowarfare. As for what Russia should do, he began by assessing that this “new war” in which their country is embroiled might last a few decades and spread to other regions, so everyone should brace themselves.
Far from focusing entirely on defense, Bezrukov advised that the economy balance between that and development, with the new technological cycle that he believes the world to have entered providing ample opportunities for building new associated infrastructure that should keep unemployment low. The first task must be protecting all critical infrastructure from attacks by either burying them underground or covering them just like nuclear power plants presently are.
He then called for “a new culture of decision-making, a culture of trust, a culture of service, and so on” that more optimally delegates responsibilities from the top of the system downward. His next proposal was a system for monitoring biological threats and merging the culture of the army with the culture of society to strengthen each other. Bezrukov then closed by calling on Russia to stop being so “nice” to its enemies since they no longer fear it after so many “red lines that we talked about remained on paper.”
Bezrukov is a Russian hero who’s earned the right through his decades of service to be as constructively critical of his country as he wants. He’s the fourth and by far most critical establishment voice to speak up over the last two months as documented here, here, and here. His candid admission of Russia’s unpreparedness for precision drone strikes within its own territory, call for a new political-management system, and request for Russia to finally enforce its red lines make his SPIEF speech a truly historic one.
Unlike Dmitry Trenin, Ivan Timofeev, and Vasily Kashin, who are part of the establishment’s expert wing, Bezrukov straddles that one and the intelligence wing, which is very influential in today’s Russia. This therefore makes him the highest-profile and most influential critic of the status quo. His words will consequently reverberate throughout the entirety of the Russian establishment so some long-overdue reforms might finally be implemented for helping Russia survive the coming decades of this “new war”.
