Lawfare Daily: Russia’s ‘Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks,’ with Sean Wiswesser
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sean Wiswesser, author of the new book, “Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War,” and a former senior operations officer with the CIA, joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss the major Russian security organs and their training, characteristics of Russian “sticks-and-bricks” surveillance and counter-surveillance tradecraft, and the Russians’ use of coercion, kompromat, and sex (often dubbed “sexpionage”) to recruit and pressure people. They also discuss corruption in the Russian intelligence services, illegals and assassination programs, brazenness and sloppiness in Russian operations, and the future of the Russian intelligence threat to the United States and the West.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm James Pierce, former Public Service Fellow, now a contributing editor at Lawfare. |
| 0:09.6 | I was honored to come to Lawfare after serving in government because I always trusted |
| 0:13.1 | lawfare to deliver reliable, non-partisan, and thoughtful analysis on critical issues. |
| 0:18.1 | We are living at a time when the rule of law is under threat, |
| 0:23.9 | and Lawfare continues to provide balanced and sober coverage, |
| 0:27.4 | but that work depends on continuing support from people like you. |
| 0:30.2 | Lawfare is a 501C3 nonprofit, |
| 0:34.3 | and we rely on our readers and listeners on you to keep that work going. |
| 0:38.9 | Head to lawfaremedia.org slash support and become a material supporter. |
| 0:42.8 | You'll help us continue to offer all our content for free to everyone. |
| 0:45.2 | Think of your support to law fair is what you can do to meet the moment. |
| 0:47.0 | Thanks for listening. |
| 0:51.6 | Their goal is to thwart democracy, to undermine democracy, the United States and all of our allies, particular allies in NATO. |
| 1:04.4 | And so my mission with the book is to undermine them, to expose them for the frauds they are in many ways, complete frauds, incompetent, |
| 1:12.8 | bungling operations they carry out, but also to also explain at the same time they remain a formidable |
| 1:17.6 | adversary. It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Justin Sherman, contributing editor at Lawfare |
| 1:23.9 | and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, with Sean Wisswesser, author of the new book, |
| 1:29.7 | Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks, Russian Intelligence and Putin's Secret War, |
| 1:35.2 | and a former senior operations officer with the CIA. |
| 1:38.8 | And so it's dissidents and defectors that are some of the greatest threats to that regime, |
| 1:42.7 | that in democracy, which is a mortal threat to Putin. |
| 1:45.7 | He can't have functioning democracies on his borders, of course. |
... |
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