Disguising intelligence activities as scientific ones is a common technique used by Russian intelligence agencies. This isn't limited to sending their people to genuine scientific conferences posing as scientists. Far more effective is the creation of front scientific organisations (institutes, foundations, etc.) that independently organise international conferences in various locations around the world. This is an ideal way to meet with existing agents and recruit new ones.

An outside observer won't always immediately recognise that such an organisation conceals an entire intelligence unit, and not a group of harmless researchers. However, the disguise can sometimes be very superficial.

One such exceptionally interesting and important organisation, the Institute for Information Security Problems, chose the Bavarian resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to host its international gatherings back in 2006. The German press—the newspaper Die Zeit and the ARD state television newsmagazine ‘Kontraste’—only took notice in 2019, and then only thanks to a silly oversight by the organisers. They proudly published a memorandum of cooperation signed by an FSB colonel general on one side and a German politician with sufficient visibility and connections to raise eyebrows among journalists and raise concerns among the government on the other.

This happened only thirteen years after the annual conferences of this audience began in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. What German journalists didn't write about was the background and the underlying events.

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The lead actor in this production is Colonel General Vladislav Sherstyuk (b. 1940). He graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University and served in the KGB from 1966, where he had, to put it mildly, a successful career. From 1995 to 1998, he was the head of the Main Directorate of Electronic Intelligence of Communications (FAPSI). FAPSI is the Federal Agency for Government Communications. It was created in 1991 and incorporated the former 16th Directorate of the KGB, which was renamed the Main Directorate of Electronic Intelligence of Communications (GURRSS or 3GU). Sherstyuk served there from 1992. Since 1998, Sherstyuk has been the deputy general director of FAPSI and simultaneously the head of the aforementioned Main Directorate of Electronic Intelligence of Communications.

From December 1998 to May 1999, Sherstyuk was the General Director of FAPSI and a member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. From May 1999 to May 2004, he was the First Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. From September 2004, he was the Assistant Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

Then General Sherstyuk suddenly became an academic. In 2003, an organisation called the ‘Institute for Information Security Problems’ (IISP MSU) was created within Moscow State University as a subdivision. In a 2019 interview, Sherstyuk himself mentioned that in 1999, at the behest of Putin, then Secretary of the Security Council, he ‘engaged in science.’ As a result, a department and then an institute were established at Moscow State University, and ‘the Garmisch Process grew from there.’ As stated on the institute's website, ‘IISP is the lead structure coordinating interdisciplinary research activities within Moscow State University in the field of 'Security and Counterterrorism.'’

It should be noted that the term ‘counter-terrorism’ in the names of Russian organisations or press outlets almost unmistakably refers to the activities of the KGB, represented by its numerous subsidiaries that emerged in the 1990s. For example, the Club of Veterans of the State Security Agencies, which has existed in Moscow since 1997, jointly publishes, in partnership with the International Centre for Scientific Research on Counter-Terrorism (ICSRTC), the journal ‘Problems of Counter-Terrorism. Problems of the 21st Century – Counter-Terrorism.’

The publication is carried out with the information support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

The Institute of Information Security Problems has five divisions and a staff of 22. The institute is a research institute and does not provide training. It is headed by a director, a first deputy director, and two deputies.

The Institute's Director is retired Colonel General Vladislav Sherstyuk. The First Deputy is retired Colonel Vladislav Yashchenko, a KGB officer since 1971.

The deputy director is retired Colonel Anatoly Streltsov. His ties to the intelligence services aren't highlighted in biographies, but his career speaks for itself: ‘From 1994 to 2011, he worked in the apparatus of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, ranging from consultant to head of the information security department.’

Deputy Director – Vladimir Viktorovich Sokolov (born in 1946).

He graduated from the Economics Department of Moscow State University. Judging by the positions Sokolov held at Moscow State University, despite his more than modest academic credentials (he holds a PhD in economics) – from 1996 to 2002, he was the head of the Consular and Protocol Department at Moscow State University, and from 2002 to 2004, he was the deputy vice-rector of Moscow State University – Sokolov is also a state security officer.

This institution bears very little resemblance to a research institution. The institute, which coordinates ‘interdisciplinary research activities’ within Moscow University in the field of ‘Security and Counterterrorism,’ is painfully reminiscent of the so-called ‘First Department,’ the KGB branch of any Soviet institution of the past. Those institutions, too, were concerned exclusively with state security. The list of members of the IISP's academic council includes at least one KGB lieutenant general, Gennady Vasilyevich Yemelyanov (born 1949).

Yemelyanov headed the inspectorate of the 8th Main Directorate of the KGB, responsible for protecting technical communications equipment and creating ciphers. In the post-Soviet era, he headed the special department of the Main Directorate for Communications Security of the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), and since 1996, he has served in the apparatus of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

The institute's list of clients, beginning with ‘the presidential administration,’ includes the Russian General Staff (i.e., the GRU), the FSB, and numerous other government agencies and corporations like Gazprom. The only foreign organisation that stands out is the Swiss Federal Centre for Military and Civil Systems (Armasuisse). The list of partners and friends of the IISP on the institute's website is lengthy. In addition to Russian firms and organisations, it includes four foreign ones: the Belarusian State University; the State University of New York (SUNY), USA; the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); the University of Karlsruhe; and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

Since 2007, the institute has held annual international forums in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, entitled ‘Partnership between Government, Business, and Civil Society in Ensuring Information Security and Countering Terrorism.’ Business and civil society are mentioned here only for the sake of concealment, while the government is represented by high-ranking officials of the Russian intelligence services.

What's even more piquant is that Garmisch-Partenkirchen is home to an American military base and the Marshall Centre for Intelligence, whose representatives also participated in the forums until 2014. After the occupation of Crimea, they stopped.

The keynote speakers at the conferences are Russian generals and intelligence officers, representatives of the Russian Security Council and the Russian Foreign Ministry, and some strange foreigners.

As Andrei Soldatov writes in his book ‘The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries’ (2015), in the early years, the US sent high-ranking representatives to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in hopes of reaching an agreement with the Russians, who were resentful of the US role in internet governance. Convincing them that these were purely technical issues proved unsuccessful.

They couldn't even agree on the meaning of the word ‘internet.’ The negotiations reached a dead end. As one American participant put it after the 2010 conference: ‘The Russians have a completely different definition of information security... what they really mean is state security.’ In other words, since about 2010, these conferences have lost their international diplomatic significance, retaining only intelligence and recruitment purposes. This also highlights the motives of conference participants, who are clearly lacking in scientific value.

In 2010, at the fourth IISP forum, a typical intelligence agency stunt was pulled: another front organisation was created, ostensibly a new and scientific one: the ‘International Information Security Research Consortium’ (IISRCC). The declaration of its creation was signed on behalf of Moscow State University by V. Sherstyuk, Director of the Institute of Information Security Problems at Moscow State University, along with representatives from the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, the Bulgarian internet community, the State University of New York, Tokai University in Japan, and the Israeli government's Department of Information Security.

The German member of the IISRC is a commercial firm, the Cybercrime Research Institute GmbH – Köln. The firm was founded in 2009, possibly in connection with the founding of the IISRC. The institute's director, Prof. Dr. Marco Gercke, teaches at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne.

Marc Goodman, who signed the declaration on behalf of the aforementioned Institute for Cybercrime Research, could not be located. Stanford University's website lists Mark Goodman, the author of the cybercrime book ‘Future Crimes.’ However, there is no mention of his connection to Germany.

China is represented by the ‘Society for Friendship with Foreign Countries’, a traditional branch of the intelligence services of former and current socialist countries.

Since then, the IISP and IISRC forums have been held jointly. Specifically, in April 2016, the Thirteenth IISRC Conference and the Tenth IISP Forum were held simultaneously in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The IISRC meeting was chaired by Colonel General Sherstyuk. At the opening, a greeting from Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council S.M. Buravlev was read. Prior to his appointment to his latter position, Colonel General Sergei Buravlev served as Deputy Director of the FSB since 2005. Buravlev had worked in state security since 1971.

The following speakers spoke at the meetings: A.V. Krutskikh (Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cooperation in Information Security); Major General I.N. Dylevsky (Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation); A.A. Soldatov (Chairman of the Board of the Internet Development Fund); M.V. Yakushev (Vice President of ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – for Eastern Europe and Central Asia); V.I. Gasumyanov (Vice President and Head of the Corporate Security Unit of Norilsk Nickel).

All of these are people from the secret services. For example, Vladislav Ivanovich Gasumyanov (b. 1959) of Norilsk Nickel is a graduate of the KGB Higher Courses and served in the KGB, SVR, and FSB from 1982 to 2001. From 2009 to 2012, he was deputy head of the Presidential Directorate for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. According to unconfirmed reports, he is a colonel or even a general in the FSB. Alexei Anatolyevich Soldatov (b. 1951) is one of the founders of the Russian internet, Vice-Rector of Moscow State University, and from 1995 to 1998, Advisor to the Director General of the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information, thus also an employee of FAPSI. In 1998, General Sherstyuk served as the Director General of FAPSI.

In April 2017, the eleventh Forum of the Institute for Information Security Problems was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Sherstyuk and Krutskikh served as co-chairs of the organising committee.

Among the three co-chairs of the programme committee, Rafal Rogozinski, a regular participant in the forums and head of the SecDev Foundation (Canada) and an employee of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, stands out. According to a 2018 interview, he speaks Russian as a native language.

Every year, the forum attracts over a hundred people, but only the names of the organisers and the authors of the papers are published. As Kommersant newspaper reported, the organisers chose this picturesque location because not all foreign delegates, many of whom are somehow connected to the intelligence services, would be comfortable or even able to travel to Russia. In other words, it's hard to find a more convenient location for meetings with current and future intelligence agents.

Conferences are invariably held at the Atlas Posthotel. There are two other hotels with similar names in Garmisch-Partenkirchen – the Atlas Sporthotel and the Atlas Grandhotel. All have been owned by a Munich real estate firm since approximately 2009. There's one catch. Among the conference sponsors is the Moscow-based ATLAS concern, founded back in 1951 ‘to meet the needs of the special communications service for new technical equipment.’ Its current clients include, in addition to the presidential administration and the Russian government, all Russian intelligence agencies and law enforcement ministries. Perhaps it's a coincidence that all conferences of such size and secrecy are held in a randomly rented hotel, but I don't think so. Especially since one of the conference participants mentioned the hotel's Russian ownership to the author.

In 2018, the organisers pulled another trick. A brand-new organisation emerged from nowhere to take over the organisation of conferences in Garmisch-Partenkirchen: NAMIB (National Association for International Information Security). The previous president, General Vladislav Sherstyuk, remained. And the presidium members retained the same familiar names.

The 13th Forum in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ‘Partnership between Government, Business and Civil Society’ was held in April 2019 under the auspices of NAMIB.

When the author of this book asked one of the forum participants what the organisers were actually doing behind the scenes, given that the reports were patently nonsensical, the answer was, ‘Diplomatic activity.’ There was no need to ask what kind of diplomacy senior Russian intelligence officers might be engaging in, given the complete absence of real negotiating partners and surrounded by friendly colleagues from various countries.

As reported, more than one hundred participants from 18 countries attended the 2019 forum.

And here, to put it mildly, something of an embarrassment arose. The NAMIB website published an article titled ‘Russia and Germany Agreed on Cooperation in Cybersecurity,’ with a link to ‘Russkoe Pole’ (Russian Field), a Russian propaganda site based in Germany. The text below clarified: ‘At the Thirteenth Forum on International Information Security, the National Association for International Information Security (NAMIB) and the German Cyber ​​Security Council agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding.’ A photograph of the signing and the text of the memorandum itself were also published. Among other things, it stated that the parties were willing to facilitate the organisation of at least two conferences per year and, starting in 2020, to jointly host conferences in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The memorandum is for three years and is automatically renewable at the parties' discretion.

In General Sherstyuk's interview at the conference's closing, an interesting remark was made: ‘Today, to our delight, our German colleagues have finally joined this effort. It took 12 years. We hope that starting this year, they will become partners in this whole endeavor.’ This remark implies that they hadn't been able to recruit any influential Germans so far, and now they've finally succeeded. The quote also makes it clear that Sherstyuk considers his German partner a colleague.

This refers to Hans-Wilhelm Dünn (born 1978), a regional politician for the CDU in Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg, and president of the Cyber ​​Security Council of Germany (CSRD). The organisation includes many large German companies, such as Airbus, Commerzbank, and Volkswagen.

The publication of the memorandum (clearly not intended for the attention of the German press) caused shock among journalists and politicians for many reasons.

The name of the society headed by Dünn is strikingly reminiscent of the name of a government body, the National Cyber ​​Security Council (Nationaler Cybersicherheitsrat). When signing the memorandum, Dünn dropped the last two letters of his organisation's name—‘e.V.’—which indicate its public, rather than governmental, nature. This forgery was highlighted by former President of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Gerhard Schindler, in an interview with the programme ‘Contrasts.’

Many might have assumed General Sherstyuk signed the memorandum with a major agency, bringing together representatives from all federal ministries, rather than a public organisation. According to Schindler, this entire story closely resembles a typical influence strategy characteristic of the Russian side, and it is the National Cyber ​​Security Council that should take action, as information security is crucial for protecting the population.

Another important point: Dünn's predecessor as chairman of Germany's public Cyber ​​Security Council until 2016 was Arne Schönbohm, who served as president of the Federal Office for Information Technology Security until the end of 2022. Dünn's contacts opened up dazzling prospects for the Russian generals.

As journalists have discovered, other members of the organisation headed by Dünn (CSRD) were not informed about the signing of the memorandum on their behalf.

This gave Sebastian Fiedler, chairman of the Criminal Police Association (BDK), the opportunity to demand that Dünn resign from his post under threat of the BDK withdrawing from the CSRD.

It also emerged that Dünn had observed the Russian presidential election in March 2018, not as part of the OSCE mission, but at the invitation of the Speaker of the State Duma, along with representatives of various right-wing pro-Russian European parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD). His reaction to the Russian elections was more than favourable. Six months later, Dünn observed the presidential elections in Zimbabwe, again not for the European Union, but for the little-known organisation AFRIC (Association for Free Research and International Cooperation), which received anonymous funding and, according to an investigation by Die Zeit and Kontrast, was linked to Russian propaganda experts.

After the Garmisch-Partenkirchen memorandum scandal erupted, on June 20, 2019, Dünn attended the International Cybersecurity Congress in Moscow, where he called for an immediate ‘dialogue on international law and cybersecurity.’

It's unlikely Dünn will be of any use to the Russian intelligence services as an agent of influence for much longer. They've already exposed him too much. But the most interesting thing in this story isn't Dünn.

The most interesting thing is that since 2006, Russian intelligence agencies have been holding annual ‘conferences’ in the heart of Bavaria with senior FSB officials, attracting their agents from all over the world. Only now has the German press taken notice. Whether German counterintelligence (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) has paid attention to this is unknown, but no attempts to disrupt the frenetic activity of FAPSI and the FSB in Garmisch-Partenkirchen have been observed so far.

The mocking nature of the name of the institute headed by General Sherstyuk and the names of the forums it hosts, which mention information security, is especially obvious if one knows that ‘...it is Moscow that organises daily attacks on the computer networks of the Bundestag and other official German agencies,’ as the head of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, stated on April 4, 2017.

In 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to organise any international conferences. In 2022, Putin's aggression against Ukraine put an end to the West's international ties with any Russian organisations, not just the intelligence services. One would very much hope that the conference where Dünn was burned will be the last in Germany.