The capture of alleged Russian mole Dmitry Kozyura came straight out of British intelligence’s Double Cross playbook
Ben Macintyre
February 14, 2025
The Times
What does an intelligence service do when it uncovers a mole in its midst? In a James Bond film, the internal spy would be liquidated, probably with an over-complicated assassination gizmo made by Q.
In a John le Carré novel he might be protected by his colleagues, fellow members of the club. But in real life, the spy would be monitored to establish his methods and contacts, fed disinformation to pass to the enemy, manipulated if possible and then, at the optimal moment, exposed.
That is exactly what Ukraine claims to have done, in a counterintelligence operation so subtle and effective that it sounds like fiction.
The alleged mole is Colonel Dmitry Kozyura, not any old accused traitor but the head of Ukrainian counterintelligence, the most senior molehunter in the country and the man in charge of catching people like him.
Kozyura was arrested this week on suspicion of spying for Moscow. According to the SBU, Ukraine’s intelligence service, he was recruited by the Russians in Vienna in 2018. The SBU said it discovered last year that he was working for the FSB, the reincarnation of the KGB.
The way Kozyura was dealt with follows a playbook written by the British in the Second World War. In 1941, debate raged between the Allies over what to do with enemy spies. The FBI chief J Edgar Hoover was all for catching enemy agents in the act, putting them on trial and then executing them with maximum publicity.
British intelligence devised an altogether more sophisticated approach: capturing arriving spies with the aid of the Bletchley Park Enigma intercepts, putting them under close surveillance, “turning” them if possible, imitating their communication techniques and feeding back quantities of misleading intelligence. The so-called “Double Cross” system was a triumph, the most important plank in the deception operation that underpinned the D-Day landings.
Ukraine’s SBU appears to have read its history. Having identified Kozyura as a suspected mole, instead of arresting him they let him run for months under close surveillance. His phones and computers were penetrated and “encrypted software bookmarks” were installed to monitor his every digital move. His home, car and office were bugged. He was followed. “We actually lived with him, conducting audio and video monitoring,” said the SBU’s chief Vasyl Malyuk, who
personally ran the case. “In the process of all this, we managed to qualitatively document the collection and transmission of relevant information by the traitor to the enemy.”
At the same time, in order to deceive Putin’s spies and entrap Kozyura, the SBU said it fed him disinformation, as well as information that was true but valueless, known in spy jargon as “chicken feed”. Malyuk claimed to have gathered evidence of 14 separate occasions when real and false classified information was passed to Russian intelligence.
On Wednesday, the SBU pounced in a stage-managed coup for the cameras, posted on social media. Malyuk was pictured in the act of arresting Kozyura, his hand on the “traitor’s” neck. Both might have been dressed for the part: Malyuk in camouflage military fatigues; Kozyura bulky in a puffer jacket, his hands cuffed and, in a later shot, kneeling in submission. There is even a livid red lump on his forehead, suggesting that he resisted arrest.
Kozyura’s motives remain obscure. The SBU reported that audio intercepts indicated that his parents had supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and knew that he was working as a double agent for Russian intelligence.
The expression on Kozyura’s face at the supposed moment of his downfall is intriguing. He appears almost resigned, unsurprised, as if he knew this moment was coming. A woollen hat hangs on the wall behind him. Is it his? If so, did he take it off and put it on the peg to get ready for his close-up? Is he co-operating in the mise-en-scène?
It is entirely possible that Kozyura was rumbled and turned far earlier than the SBU has stated publicly. Like the Double Cross spies before him, he may have been offered a grim choice between collaborating in the Ukrainian ruse to feed lies to his Russian spymasters, or death.
The timing of his arrest is not accidental, taking place on the very day that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the telephone for 90 minutes. Ukraine fears being sidelined and having an unfair peace deal imposed. The Kozyura arrest says: we have tabs on you, you are less powerful than you think and we are still fighting.
The episode was deliberately framed to rattle the FSB. Inside the Kremlin, the SBU hopes, a frantic search will now be under way to find out whether an agent was exposed because the organisation has its own mole within it: the nightmare of every intelligence service.
Putin’s top analysts will be combing through any intelligence received from Kozyura to try to establish what was true, what was half-true and what was false; when he was caught, or turned, and when he started to pass them lies.
Kozyura was allegedly a double agent, the most prized species of spy, an informant deep inside the enemy intelligence service. But it is just possible that he ended up acting as a triple agent, appearing to serve Russian interests while actually still working, perhaps under duress, for the Ukrainians.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s defence minister insisted: “The message is that we are continuing, we’re strong, we’re capable, we’re able, we will deliver.”
That was also the message, in the language of espionage, sent by the arrest of Kozyura, a deliberate move to strengthen Ukraine’s hand in negotiations by demonstrating to the West, and to Vladimir Putin, that it is a force to be reckoned with.
It remains to be seen whether Ukraine is left stranded by Trump’s diplomatic overture to Putin and forced to accept a humiliating settlement but this much is certain: a century from now, the Kozyura case will still be on the curriculum of spy schools around the world.
Ben Macintyre is an associate editor, columnist and writer at large for The Times. He was the newspaper’s bureau chief in New York, Paris and Washington, before returning to the UK in 2001. He has written a weekly column since 1996. He is also the author of 12 books of non-fiction, including Agent Zigzag and The Spy and the Traitor.