Is Putin’s Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism?

A veteran U.S. spy weighs the mounting evidence that he says U.S. and NATO officials must consider

Chris Costa. (Credit: International Spy Museum)

Chris Costa knows the spy business.

As a U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, Costa ran covert networks for years from the Horn of Africa to Afghanistan that targeted America’s adversaries. Later, he served as the National Security Council’s director of counterterrorism during President Trump’s first term, developing the strategy that ultimately led to the dismantling of the ISIS caliphate and the death of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

But these days, if there’s anything that worries Costa more than the still active terrorist groups he once worked to destroy, it’s the brazen escalation of “active measures” by Russian intelligence services. The Kremlin has ordered a spate of assassinations, bombings, arson plots, and other operations across Europe that Costa argues amount to full-scale “hybrid warfare” against the West and even state-sponsored terrorism.

“The lights are ‘blinking red’ again with NATO countries at greater risk of attacks,” Costa recently warned in an op-ed in The Hill. “This time not by al Qaeda or ISIS terrorists, but by Russian-directed agents plotting acts of sabotage and terrorism. This sabotage could be the trigger for a wider war in Europe.”

“Blinking red,” of course, was the phrase then CIA Director George Tenet famously used to describe the threats from al Qaeda in the summer of 2001. Does Costa see the current Russian threat as that serious?

“So this isn't hyperbolic in any way, shape, or form,” Costa, now executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, said on the SpyTalk podcast. “In fact, it's informed by engaging with [foreign] partners that I've worked with in the past.”