[jojobas]

These are not very recent and quite a few of the attacks went wrong with surviving victims and caught perpetrators.

The Russian omnipresent assassination machine is as much a myth as its invincible military.

That said, the West keeps playing as if there's no hostile power trying to infiltrate everything it can, 30-50yo Russian males with unexplained biography gaps or no background checks at all still allowed to travel freely, establish businesses with sketchy financials and so on.

[sharikous]

Apart from the fact that Russia is not the only hostile power trying to infiltrate Western organizations, I find the premise incredibly sexist, as if men are presumably more likely to be foreign agents than women.

[jojobas]

You'll find that all of Russian secret services are extremely sexist. GRU only recruits from commanding officers in active duty, and these are almost 100% male. FSB does use women, mostly for honeypot purposes.

And yes, I agree that Chinese nationals are to be treated with way more suspicion as well. Anyone with relatives in China can be pushed to do whatever CCP needs. Also everyone with official links to the CCP should be under 24/7 monitoring, something something "covert police stations" and Confucius Institute.

[quibono]

I'm not sure we'll ever get any clear data on this but I don't think this is a very outlandish claim.

[jojobas]

Data from numerous defectors is clear enough, Russian secret services don't normally employ female officers for client-facing work.

[red-iron-pine]

if by 'client facing' you mean assassination then perhaps.

but plenty of not-men out there doing SVR work. Anna Chapman comes to mind, or the little lady who was making friends with the NRA and all of those GOP politicians...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Chapman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program

[jojobas]

Chapman and Butina are by no means intelligence officers, they were assets with minimal training.

I'll grant you illegals in general, those are typically married couples.

[FreshStart]

The had a gay couple though to murder scripal. As if the sex or gender mattered regarding this topic. Cheap discussion subversion by tankies running out of arguments.

[jojobas]

That's a hoax, they were both identified as straight married men as far as we can tell. They also both fall into the "army officer recruited after few years of active duty" GRU pattern.

They got a prostitute the night before their botched Salisbury trip, rather than shag each other. The whole gay bit came from their Russian TV ruse appearance.