New in SpyWeek: Assassination Escalation

Plots by Russia, India, Iran, Israel, China and the Saudis. We also eyeball a strange frame-up, the FBI's 702 kerfuffle, a FISA Fest and more

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Ukraine's state security service said it thwarted another Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky, resulting in the arrests of two Ukrainian colonels. (CNN) 

Assassination Contagion: The word “assassination” first appeared in print in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The Bard understood that assassination had the power to change history and fate. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly: If the assassination could trammel up the consequence and catch with his surcease success,” Macbeth says, wishing that his plan to murder King Duncan could be over and done and the consequences controlled. 

If only. Some 500 years later, assassination as a morbid tool of statecraft is getting a new life, so to speak. And just as Shakespeare warned, the consequences are threatening to spiral out of control. 

Recent news that we’ve covered in SpyWeek suggests that we’ve entered a new era where multiple countries have become comfortable using assassinations as a tool of foreign policy. Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and Ukraine have been accused of plotting lethal attacks overseas against adversaries, including their own citizens. An act we once expected from only from Russia, Israel, and, let’s face it, the United States, has now become commonplace.