A Model Estonian Soldier Who Spied for Russia

If the lady is cooperating with the intelligence agency - he would then be imprisoned in Russia for her rape. Esp. knowing how they do that in Russia.

I think the only reasonable thing to do in this situation is to do what another comment in the thread mentioned: to contact your commander.

But in this situation there was another issue for the guy: his relatives live in Russia, so there might have been a case of him never seeing them again. Or having to work as a double-agent.

>> He had accepted money for information—“That was the first step,” he told me—and met the man who would be his handler for the years to come, Anton.

So Russian. So KGB/GRU. America will spend billions putting a satellite up in orbit to spy on a man in a tent. Russia will get the same level of information with a couple fake cops, a girl, and a few dollars paid to vulnerable kid.

>> an artillery specialist

He was the perfect target. Artillery doesn't translate into the civilian world. Artillery people are more afraid of losing their military jobs than other trades. A sex video would put more fear into an artillery person than say a pilot or medic, people who could walk away from the military into a stable civilian career.

>> While Metsavas was in Afghanistan, GRU agents had traveled to Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok, to meet with his father. Volin had retired there from London years earlier to be closer to his new wife’s parents, but his partner had fallen ill.

And he has family retired to somewhere accessible to Russian agents? I wouldn't be surprised to hear that his father's new wife was also an agent. Again, sooo Russian. They checked every human intelligence box. America leverages technology. Russia leverages people.

Well, he doesn’t know it’s an intelligence op at that time, right? He’s only overwhelmed and doesn’t actually know what cooperation means. They’re subverting the same instinct that people in America have which needs to be protected by “Don’t talk to the police” which is “you’ve done nothing wrong. Just be upfront and we’ll help you out”. Then as time passes, the hold constricts around him.

An allegation of rape will have finished off his career. No doubt about it. Take the Assange situation, then add an actual video of him having sex. Even if it were obviously not a single cut, enough people will hate him for it. “It’s a GRU op” people will be treated as conspiracy theorists.

I’m not saying the Assange situation is like this (that he was entrapped) to be clear, but the reactions you read online to that will be similar to what this man would have received had the video been made public.

On the up-side, he wouldn’t have been imprisoned for spying against his country. On the downside, his blossoming career would have ended. But in the moment, the upside seems unlikely, rare and far off. The downside is immediate. The upside is subject to hyperbolic discounting.

The reason I doubt the theory of “this happens quietly many times” is that KAPO would be aware of the strategy and would have every incentive to inoculate Estonians about it, and to crow about their native heroes who escaped Russian clutches. Instead they only allowed revealing of the strategy via a caught spy.