Original NYT article (paywalled)
In public, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says his country’s growing friendship with China is unshakable — a strategic military and economic collaboration that has entered a golden era.
But in the corridors of Lubyanka, the headquarters of Russia’s domestic security agency, known as the F.S.B., a secretive intelligence unit refers to the Chinese as “the enemy.”
This unit, which has not previously been disclosed, has warned that China is a serious threat to Russian security. Its officers say that Beijing is increasingly trying to recruit Russian spies and get its hands on sensitive military technology, at times by luring disaffected Russian scientists.
The intelligence officers say that China is spying on the Russian military’s operations in Ukraine to learn about Western weapons and warfare. They fear that Chinese academics are laying the groundwork to make claims on Russian territory. And they have warned that Chinese intelligence agents are carrying out espionage in the Arctic using mining firms and university research centers as cover.
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In response, Russian counterintelligence launched a programme titled “Entente-4” just days before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. The programme—ironically named after the historical Franco-Russian alliance, was designed to prevent Chinese infiltration at a time when Moscow’s military and intelligence focus had shifted heavily westward.
Since then, according to the report, the FSB has tracked an increasing number of attempts by Chinese intelligence to penetrate Russian political and business circles. The document details orders for surveillance of Russian people closely tied to China and heightened monitoring of the Chinese messaging app WeChat. This includes hacking phones and gathering personal data using a specialised FSB tool.
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Don’t tell me that China cares mostly about China.