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Prior to invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to foresee the potential U.S. response. As a former KGB operative, Putin honed his skill at sizing up personalities while he was running spy networks in East Germany. He prides himself on his ability to “work and communicate with people,” calling himself a “specialist in human relations,” a skill he believes is critical to his role as Russian president.
The meeting between Putin and Biden would have certainly been studied by the Chinese in the lead-up to Monday’s Biden/Xi conversation on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. The Chinese are fully aware of the actions Putin took following his discussions with Biden.
US President Joe Biden meets with China’s President Xi Jinping during a virtual summit from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, November 15, 2021.
(Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
A lot can be gleaned from that February meeting and how Russia does its intel gathering. In 2001, during a press conference, the former Russian spymaster explained his approach to striking rapport when communicating with a wide range of individuals, from journalists and scientists to politicians and rank-and-file citizens: “It is important to establish a dialogue and activate the best in your partner. You want to achieve results; you must respect your partner, acknowledge that he is better than you in some way. You must make him your ally … make him feel that there is something that unites you, that you have a common cause.”
This is exactly the approach that human intelligence, or HUMINT, officers use to target, assess and recruit spies who are willing to betray their country in service for a foreign land. And this is the intelligence tradecraft that Putin used when he was sizing up Biden during their summit in Geneva in June 2021, as well as during subsequent phone calls and meetings by…
