What ethical basis is there, if any, for espionage and intelligence activities? During the Cold War, and especially after the September 11 attacks, surveillance and espionage has been marketed to us as a necessary activity, even though it may occasionally veer off course. Staffed by bright, dedicated people motivated by the noble desire to protect the nation, spying and intelligence gathering is portrayed as having ethical motivations – to protect us from terrorists, gangsters, violent militias and so on.

But what happens when the intelligence gathering agencies themselves engage in criminal activities? We will answer that question later, but first, let’s examine a recent and parallel example.

The nuclear deterrent is allegedly based on an ethical consensus surrounding MAD – mutually assured destruction. The claim goes that while nuclear weapons are abhorrent, they are a necessary to deter the enemy. Their power and scale of destructiveness undergird the moral imperative of avoiding mutual destruction. Were not the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki morally rationalised as destructive acts which, by shortening the war, saved thousands of lives? At least, that is what we were told by the proponents of nuclear weapons.

The Trident system, marketed as the next technological step in the UK’s nuclear weapons programme, was promoted by the English ruling class and its Tory party allies as a necessary deterrent. News has emerged that the latest test of the Trident, fired from a nuclear capable submarine the HMS Vanguard, embarrassingly failed.

In full view of the UK’s defence minister and senior military figures, the Trident missile launched from the submarine basically fell back into the water. Apparently the booster rockets failed, so the missile landed close to its launch location. The last test of Trident in 2016 also ended in failure.

The incredibly expensive programme’s failure has raised serious questions about the nuclear deterrent policy. Indeed, the case for reinforcing the nuclear nonproliferation treaty has only strengthened. If Trident was supposed to be an expensive yet powerful deterrent, then Moscow and Beijing must be laughing at its ineffectiveness. Combine that with the fact that Ukrainian forces, long supported by Britain and the United States, have had to withdraw in defeat from a strategically important city, and the entire moral argument for the alleged deterrence policy lies in tatters.

It is worthwhile to point out here that, when it comes to nuclear weapons technology, the West has a long history of proliferation. While apartheid South Africa was under sanctions for its racist legislative practices, it was successful in acquiring nuclear technology from sanctions-busting Israel. Pretoria and Tel Aviv, while loudly claiming to uphold international law, repeatedly broke that law to achieve military and economic objectives.

Back to our earlier question – does not espionage and intelligence gathering have a moral basis? I mentioned the defeat of Ukrainian forces earlier in this article, to further discuss this issue. Surely Kyiv has the right to defend itself against the Russian invasion through, among other means, secret operations? Drone strikes, targeted assassinations, sabotage of military and economic resources – are these necessary, even justified in times of warfare?

Sure, they do occur in wartime. The Zelensky government is no stranger to authorising and implementing secret missions. The Washington Post published an extensive investigative article regarding the intelligence capabilities and activities of Ukrainian secret services.

The Ukrainian domestic security services, the SBU, have waged a campaign of drone strikes and killings of Russian officials. Striking the Kremlin itself, and attacking the road bridge linking Ukraine to the Crimea, this underhanded campaign has been portrayed as pure self defence. However, as the Washington Post reporters make clear, the CIA and the UK’s intelligence services have been pouring money, and providing training, to the Kyiv regime at least since 2015.

The following quote from the article, while lengthy, is necessary to shed light on the issue:

These operations have been cast as extreme measures Ukraine was forced to adopt in response to Russia’s invasion last year. In reality, they represent capabilities that Ukraine’s spy agencies have developed over nearly a decade — since Russia first seized Ukrainian territory in 2014 — a period during which the services also forged deep new bonds with the CIA.

The missions have involved elite teams of Ukrainian operatives drawn from directorates that were formed, trained and equipped in close partnership with the CIA, according to current and former Ukrainian and U.S. officials. Since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow, officials said.

In fact, the depth of CIA involvement in converting Ukrainian intelligence into a fully integrated operative arm of the CIA has eerie similarities to the cultivation of South Vietnamese intelligence in Saigon during the American intervention in that nation. One former CIA official was quoted in the Washington Post stating that we are witnessing the birth of a new Mossad, a reference to the Israeli intelligence service.

By annexing Ukrainian assets as proxies of Western intelligence interests, the Kyiv regime resembles the now defunct Saigon client state in South Vietnam. Nurtured by American and British weapons, sustained by funding from imperialist states, the parallels between Saigon and Kyiv are striking.

No, I am not suggesting that Putin is a new Ho Chi Minh, or that he is leading a guerrilla struggle against a militarily superior opponent. However, it is incumbent on us to shine a spotlight on the activities of intelligence services which are predatory and criminal in character. How many other former Eastern bloc nations have been transformed into intelligence assets against Moscow?