FBI trolls Russian embassy with geotargeted ads for disgruntled spies

The FBI's latest counterintelligence operation against Russia is not secret.

The FBI has stepped up its recruiting efforts in the US in order to attract Russians who are dissatisfied with the war. The ads that appear in Russian on social media can be seen by people standing in close proximity to the Russian Embassy.

There was an ad in the Washington Post reporter's Facebook feed when he was standing on the sidewalk next to the embassy, but it wasn't in his feed when he crossed the street.

“It’s a brilliant recruiting strategy because I think there’s probably a lot of folks within the Russian government that are incredibly dissatisfied with Putin’s war, and therefore it’s a great opportunity to see if any of those dissatisfied people could help us understand Putin’s intentions better,” Peter Lapp, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, told the Post.

Advertisers can target ads based on location on many advertising platforms. A location can be as broad as a country or as small as a region. The minimum for Facebook ads is one mile, but it is possible to trim that further by includingZIP codes or specific neighborhoods.

Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, is shown in a Facebook ad standing next to Putin. The ad recalls a series of tense moments from one of Putin's televised meetings in the build-up to the war. The FBI wrote at the bottom of the picture, "We are ready to listen."

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The FBI wants readers to contact them. If you have information that could help the FBI, please contact us. The ad encourages visitors to visit us in person and says that information you give will be handled in a confidential manner.

Lapp told the Post that the ads will probably have Russian counterintelligence officials working overtime to determine whether any of the country’s spies or diplomats visited the site or the FBI’s field office. 

Russian counterintelligence officers are currently in an all-hands-on-deck mode to make sure their folks don't stray and that they are keeping an eye on their own officers to make sure that no one goes rogue. That is a counterintelligence success for the FBI.