Sixteen years ago, on Dec. 1, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine was created. Mykola Malomuzh was appointed to head it in April 2005. His office is neither luxurious nor large. There is a small table for meetings, a map on the wall, a coffee table surrounded by leather armchairs, and ordinary desk with the necessary office supplies. To the right is a telephone console with separate telephones for communicating with the government and a direct phone line to the president. Next to this is a device designed, as I later found out, to protect office conversations from being illegally recorded. There are many photographs on the open shelves of a wall unit, in which the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service is pictured with the directors of various countries’ intelligence services. The windows look out on a forest intersected by a concrete fence with signals and guarded by watchdogs. This is the secure area of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, located near the Kyiv- Zhytomyr highway. I began my interview with Mykola MALOMUZH about the suburban location of his service.
“WE HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE OR FEAR”
Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service is a very mysterious organization, proof of which is its location and closed nature. Are there reasons for these kinds of measures, or is this a tribute to fashion, following the work style and isolation of similar foreign intelligence organizations? How does this help in your work?
“Such a location is an objective necessity imposed by security measures, which in their turn create normal secure conditions for organizing intelligence activity. Preserving confidentiality and hence not broadcasting the real status of our employees to foreigners and Ukrainian citizens help them carry out their functions in an efficient way. Many intelligence services do this. Russia’s Intelligence Service is also located in the woods, in Yasenevo, and the headquarters of the CIA is located apart too, in Langley. I’ve had opportunities to talk to other heads of intelligence services in European countries, who expressed their wish to have the same conditions in order to preserve secrecy, especially for coding and training employees.
“At the same time I can say that an intelligence agency, on the one hand, should be under public control and open to a certain extent. On the other, the specific features of our work demand strict secrecy and isolation.”
Wouldn’t it be worth borrowing from the Americans’ experience of control over the intelligence agency’s work by creating a separate parliamentary committee on intelligence questions, like in the US?
“This is the right time. During the last convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, the suggestion to create a narrower intelligence committee was proposed. I don’t exclude the possibility that this idea will be implemented in the new parliament. If such a committee is created, the system of parliamentary control and cooperation will become more efficient. We fully support this kind of control.”
In recent times, ideas about restoring the Foreign Intelligence Agency to the Security Service of Ukraine have begun emerging. What is behind this? What impact can this have on the efficiency of intelligence activity?
“I think this is a step backwards. The division of functions of an intelligence agency into foreign and domestic sections in the political and functional senses has led to much more efficient work in this sphere. The idea to make the intelligence service an independent structure emerged already in the early 1990s. It was proposed by the first heads of the Chief Intelligence Administration of the SBU, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Yevhen Marchuk, and other far-seeing professionals, who were aware that only this type of status will enable the intelligence service to live up to its full potential and be beneficial to the state. But at that time the proper objective conditions did not exist; they appeared much later.
“On the other hand, most influential intelligence agencies in the world are independent state bodies. Russia, the US, and many European countries have followed this path.”
“I was among the active developers of this conception, which was aimed at separating the intelligence service into an independent structure to be a powerful center that deals with foreign tasks, as strictly determined by the state. The principal thing here was that it became impossible to use intelligence agency for the goals of domestic policy. There were such aspirations at one time.
“Since the Foreign Intelligence Service was established, these kinds of questions no longer arise in the SBU because all the spheres of competence, priorities, and tasks are strictly defined. No regulatory act provides for an intelligence agency working on Ukraine’s territory, tracking political or other kinds of processes. The competence in the sphere of the activities of the intelligence service, counterintelligence, and the defense of the constitutional order are strictly defined by law. Such a division of functions between departments secures objectivity for the activity of the intelligence service independently of political forces and changes of parliaments and governments.
“Is it reasonable to place the intelligence service under the same roof with subdivisions that carry out operational-search activities within the country and which have law-enforcement authority — the right to launch criminal actions, arrest, and interrogate, etc.? I am in favor of having a strong intelligence service, a strong counterintelligence service, and a strong military intelligence service. I cannot see any effect from merging them.”
In an interview for the Ukrainian mass media you said that our intelligence service is one of the top 10 according to activity indices. According to what criteria and how can one compare work in this closed sphere?
“There is no official rating like this. A conventional list of countries with strong and efficient intelligence services was drafted by professionals over a number of years. There are many possible assessment criteria. First and foremost, everything depends on the economic might of the state, its geopolitical role and place in the world today, ideology, and influence. Next are the school of intelligence, its professional traditions, positions in many countries, and secret service and technical possibilities.
“Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service is young but ambitious. Both our staff and technique have a good potential, and we have possibilities for obtaining information that few countries can afford. One of the particular features of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, which enables us to compete with intelligence services of other countries, is the harmonious and complementary combination of secret and technical intelligence services. I want to underline that not all national intelligence agencies are equipped with a strong high-tech technical intelligence service. I think that the guarantee of our success at the present historical stage, which is characterized by rapid scientific and technical development, above all in the information-communication sphere, is the maximum efficient use of the technical composition of our intelligence service.
“We also have a reverse connection, the assessment of our work by our foreign partners. We have now established contact with 115 intelligence agencies and the special services of 69 countries. We have organized a mutual exchange of information on a number of important questions, for example, the struggle against terrorism. Some of our materials are very highly rated, and the main thing is that, thanks to their use, a number of serious crimes have been prevented. This enables us to draw certain conclusions. In addition, as of today we are coordinators of the CIS countries’ intelligence services and similar structures in the countries of the Black Sea basin. We are regularly invited to Brussels to take part in discussions of security sector reform and cooperation in this sphere among European countries. If our intelligence service were not recognized, we would be occupying a back seat.”
Can one speak of the high technical possibilities of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service’s radio intelligence service without our own spy satellites, an obligatory attribute of many highly developed countries?
“Spy satellites have more of a bookish coloring. Why? Because a spy satellite is mainly used by intelligence services for visual space intelligence, for photographing objects located on the earth’s surface. Therefore, it would be mistaken to consider that spy satellites are a necessary prerequisite for the successful activity of a strategic radio intelligence service. In the situation where Ukraine cannot afford to have modern satellite intelligence systems, we seek non- standard decisions that include the systematic development of the infrastructure of the terrestrial segment of radio intelligence, a combination of original technical decisions on the level of the best world analogues with new tactical schemes for their application. I would like to note that despite certain difficulties, which are the background for the development of the Ukrainian radio service, it has managed not only to preserve but also to multiply its technical potential. This gives grounds to assert that Ukraine is part of an innumerous group of states that possess a full cycle of radio intelligence, including cryptanalysis. We are also developing in other directions, including the sphere of visual space intelligence. After all, Ukraine is renowned for its achievements in the space sphere. It is only a matter of time.”
Can one assume that the possibilities of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service allow us to intercept information, like the American system Echelon-2?
“We have rejected the principle of globalization in carrying out intelligence activity. We have neither a need for this nor corresponding abilities. But we control the situation where there are threats to Ukraine.”
How, to whom, and in what form is intelligence information transmitted, and what is the attitude to it on the part of our country’s leaders?
“On the one hand, we are purposefully carrying out analytical studies of priority problems, doing this on the basis of non-standard generally-known information but specific information that is received with the help of the secret or technical intelligence services. It is exclusive and therefore very important for further decision making. If this is a complex problem, for example, energy, we give analytical deep material with positions of countries, centers, corporations — all those that are involved in this sphere. We produce real plans and intentions, forecasts of further actions, and possible risks. We model a situation on possible directions of further relations with Ukraine in this sphere or another. And with respect to this we give our recommendations and suggestions. These materials go to the president, the National Security and Defense Council, the prime minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the SBU, and various ministers. So the circle of our information users is strictly determined.
“There are various forms of presenting intelligence. There are once-time materials concerning some concrete facts or events. This is, as a rule, an analysis of real and possible risks and challenges for Ukraine’s national security. For example, it can tell about changes in some state’s policy or concrete actions in one sphere or another: energy, military-technical, the economy, or attempts to damage Ukraine’s interests. In this connection, concrete measures advantageous to the state’s political and economical interests are offered. We have moved to a new stage of our materials’ maintenance: we have daily communications with users of our information, and we see how it arrives and is processed.
“We feel that there is an interest in our materials and that they are understood in a serious way. They are often applied while preparing state decisions. And the confirmation of our high-quality work is that most of our forecasts come true.”
One often hears about the expulsion of intelligence officers from Russia, the US, or Great Britain. Why is there no news about the expulsion of Ukrainian intelligence people? Or have there been such cases and I just didn’t hear anything about them?
“As the detailed review of such situations indicates, most of them are not linked to miscalculations by a concrete intelligence officer or his excessive activity in intelligence work abroad, but are the result of the aggravation of foreign relations between states. In some cases, this may be the unwillingness of a government to show its negative attitude to a step taken by its counterpart. This thesis is proved by the fact that it is not always intelligence officers who are declared ‘persona non grata.’ Frequently diplomats with no connections to any intelligence services fall under this category.
“The effectiveness of intelligence work does not always depend on whether its officers are expelled to their home country or not and on the frequency of such expulsions. One can work for years without any failures or make numerous mistakes because of lack of professionalism, which leads to attention from counterintelligence services. So this is a rather conditional and subjective criterion of assessing work done abroad. We try not to send to any country a staffer who does not have very serious professional preparation or when all the methods of his/her defense have not been developed properly.
“Generally, today the practice of expelling people for carrying out intelligence work is not applied as often as in the past. The coexistence of special services is entering a civilized plane. Even if someone is declared persona non grata, this is done without unnecessary publicity and media grandstanding. Has this ever happened in our practice? I can say frankly that we have not had failures lately. There have been cases of the mutual recall of intelligence officers. But this was not our miscalculation, but mutual complaints on both sides.”
Many analysts consider that the failures of the American and other intelligence services in recent years are explained by the fact that the intelligence services of these countries paid little attention to the human factor and mostly relied on technical means of gathering intelligence. What is the correlation between the human and technical factor in the Foreign Intelligence Service?
“This is a very important topic. In our work we give preference to the human factor, first and foremost to secret intelligence work. Discussions concerning its demotion to a secondary role along with the rapid growth of technological innovations in the communications sphere and the constant spread of principles of an information society in international relations have practically ceased since 9/11. The lack of intelligence information at the stage of drafting and adopting resolutions by the governments of a number of leading countries on waging a full- scale struggle against terrorism, as well as the urgent need for such a struggle during the process of conducting military and special operations, forced the intelligence authorities to reconsider their vision of the organization of this component of the intelligence service. Most experts agree that the role and importance of secret intelligence remain extremely important in the short run.
“The importance of a technical intelligence service, which guarantees the acquisition of genuine documented information via special methods on channels of international telecommunications networks, is also growing. Terrorist organizations have begun using new means of communication, new methods of notifying about planned acts of terror, and financing via electronic means. Huge numbers of people should be involved in tracking and controlling the situation. It is difficult to penetrate a criminal milieu, and technical means can work actively here. Information that is obtained by using technical intelligence is a fundamental complement to the results of secret intelligence work. Taking into account that the world, technologies, and defense systems have changed, we are training our new employees according to new programs and methods.”
Do you have any problems recruiting employees? Don’t you need to advertise recruitment, like some European intelligence services do?
“We have stopped on the conception of a target-oriented selection of highly professional employees, and we practice an individual approach to resolving this question. We believe that only people with a number of educational, professional, psychological, and personal skills as well as knowledge of foreign languages should enter the intelligence services. We have no place for indifferent employees who are unable to model a situation and apply new methods, who have no initiative or creative theories for resolving a problem. We set tasks so that a staffer of any age will generate ideas and new approaches and methods of organizing intelligence work, which are now applied by the leading special services.
“At the same time we must take other aspects into account. If a person is invited to an intelligence service, s/he consciously undertakes a certain responsibility to society and the state, and voluntarily agrees with a number of significant limitations on her/his rights and freedoms. In the world’s leading countries such people are granted certain social guarantees of their high social status. It is impossible to resolve these problematic questions without a systematic, complex approach to the legislative consolidation of the high level of legislative and social protection of a staff member of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. We have problems with these questions, and we attach extremely great importance to their resolution. We are gradually increasing the budget and developing a number of social programs that have been confirmed by the president and the National Security and Defense Council. We are increasing allocations for salaries and housing programs. There is an improvement on this plane. We plan to solve this problem in the next few years so that our staff members will have housing, a respectable salary, and other social guarantees so that he is well-secured on the home front.
“At the moment we don’t have a lack of intelligence officers. There is competition. Only one- third of those who pass the stage of preliminary examination and vetting are taken; the rest are rejected according to certain criteria.”
“WORKING FOR AN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE IS WORKING FOR THE STATE”
How did you picture intelligence work when you started working in the special service? What is it like now that you are Ukraine’s top intelligence officer?
“In the 1980s, and especially today, when our country has become independent, I always had a strict position on serving the state in this acute direction. Many changes have taken place during this period. If we speak about the Ukrainian intelligence service, many generations of professionals worked to create it. They accumulated various life problems and experiences, various ambitions in the good sense of this world. While creating the Ukrainian intelligence service, we were not following the path of negating the past and forgetting the best work experience. We have preserved the potential of our employees and turned it into professionalism for the Ukrainian state’s benefit. At the same time, a change of stereotypes in the thinking of our staff members is taking place, which is bringing results. Even in the last three years our intelligence service has cardinally changed and an important breakthrough forward has been made. The renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Service is an inseparable part of the development and improvement of intelligence work. The tough demands that are placed on our employees are imposed by the long-term policy of raising its prestige and increasing its efficiency rather than by opportunistic interests.
“These are not empty words. Working for a special service is working for the state. It is difficult and tense work but extremely important for society. We don’t promise the skies to anyone. But we promise, and guarantee, interesting and exciting work. This is a unique opportunity for real individuals to fully realize themselves. And that means a lot in life.”
THE DAY’S FACT FILE
Mykola MALOMUZH graduated from Shevchenko Kyiv National University with honors in 1982, majoring in law. Since December 1983 he has worked in the Security Service of Ukraine, where he has held strategic and leading positions. In December 1998 he was appointed deputy head of Ukraine’s State Committee on Religions Affairs. On April 3, 2005, he was appointed head of the Foreign Intelligence Service by presidential order. He is married and has a son and a daughter.
