Overview
- The FSB announced on Tuesday, June 2 that it uncovered a large-scale operation that placed spyware on the smartphones of high-ranking Russian officials to harvest calls, messages, location data, contacts and nearby audio and video.
- Moscow accused Western intelligence services of running the operation with the help of major internet infrastructure firms and showed footage referencing Fastly and Cloudflare, a claim that has not been independently verified outside Russian state sources.
- The agency said it has launched a criminal investigation to identify perpetrators, infrastructure and the volume of compromised data and released videos featuring an unnamed operative, a retired FSB major general and a Kaspersky-linked expert as part of its presentation.
- The FSB warned officials to stop discussing sensitive matters on or near phones and said collected material was later used to add some target individuals to U.S. and EU blacklist measures and to exert pressure.
- The allegations build on earlier tech disputes between Russia and Western firms and, if true, could deepen restrictions on foreign services and device use by officials even though independent technical confirmation is currently lacking.