Analysis: New Zealand has been dragged kicking into another geopolitical conflict, with the release of Russian security service footage of a man’s arrest in Khabarovsk near Russia’s eastern seaboard.
The man in a white striped windbreaker is approached from behind, thrown to the ground and cuffed. He’s loaded into an unmarked black van, and taken to the agency’s offices for questioning, before appearing briefly in court accused of treason.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) alleges he was spying for New Zealand; the footage shows them searching his home and finding wads of US$100 bills.
Is there any truth to the allegations?
Newsroom approached Stanislav Krans, the Russian ambassador to Wellington. “It has come to the attention of the Russian Embassy that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has identified and suppressed unlawful actions by a Russian citizen suspected of committing a crime of high treason,” he says.
“According to the FSB, the suspect has provided the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service with information that could be used against the security of Russia. The investigation is currently underway.”
The NZ Security Intelligence Service has a longstanding practice of not commenting on what may or may not be operational matters, a spokesperson tells me today. “It should also be noted that Russian state media are often not the most reliable source of accurate reporting.”
But the service’s reluctant and unwelcome cameo in this latter-day spy novel comes as less of a surprise when we consider that New Zealand has 100 Defence Force personnel stationed in the UK and across Europe to provide military training, intelligence, liaison, and logistics support to Ukraine. That puts us squarely in Russia’s sights.
The SIS director-general, Andrew Hampton, speaks often about the threat of foreign espionage to New Zealand. Last month, he joined New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners in warning publicly about Chinese military intelligence using LinkedIn and similar platforms to recruit people with access to privileged or classified information. “This is espionage,” he said, baldly.
Yet there is another side to the coin: what he calls the service’s foreign intelligence mandate. The minister can issue a warrant for the service to collect intelligence abroad.
“This is not a function we have traditionally spoken a great deal about,” Hampton said last year, in a speech to the NZ Institute of International Affairs, in Wellington. “It involves collecting, analysing and sharing intelligence to further New Zealand’s interests and those of our region.”
New Zealand’s National Security Intelligence Priorities include understanding how the country’s national security is affected by strategic competition and defence activities in the Indo-Pacific region – an area that broadly runs from the Indian subcontinent up through East Asia to the Pacific and the Pacific rim. Focuses include key states’ ambitions, actions and behaviours that challenge New Zealand’s national security interests, and transboundary threats.
‘Those who are planning to commit treason should remember that this particularly serious crime carries a penalty of up to life imprisonment.’
Unnamed FSB officer, quoted in Tass
Hampton has signalled New Zealand is willing to leverage its foreign intelligence mandate, especially in the Pacific region. “The strong historical, cultural and people-to-people connections New Zealanders have with the region is also key.”
Khabarovsk Krai is in the wider Pacific region. So it’s in this context that New Zealanders will want to avoid jumping to hasty conclusions about the veracity, or otherwise, of these Russian claims to have arrested a man who was working with the NZ Security Intelligence Service.
It may, of course, be disinformation from the Russian security service intended to harden the views of Putin’s supporters in Russia and around the world.
But the man’s stated remit – “to obtain information about Russia’s military-technical cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific region” – would also, arguably, be consistent with New Zealand’s intelligence priorities.
Does Russia care about the South Pacific?
The Khabarovsk Krai region hosts the Khurba, Bolshoi, and Dzyomgi military air bases, and the Kamenny Ruchey naval air base. It borders China and is not far from North Korea; it has coastline on the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. It’s in the most contested area of the North Pacific Ocean.
According to a US Congressional Research Service report last month, Russia’s military-technical cooperation in the Asia-Pacific centres on strategic alignment with China, defence trade with India and Vietnam, and emerging security pacts with states like North Korea.
The latest US Defense Intelligence Agency threat assessment says: “Russia relies on China as its key partner in countering the US in the Indo-Pacific region, and almost certainly will advance ties in 2026 by continuing military technical cooperation, combined patrols, and sharing lessons learned from its war in Ukraine.”
But it’s sometimes extended its reach south of the equator.
In 2016, The Guardian revealed Russia had supplied the Fiji military with 20 container-loads of weapons and military hardware.
Then in April this year, a Russian corvette, submarine and support vessel visited the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. The Lowy Institute’s Paul Pelczar says: “Russia does not need to dominate the Indo-Pacific to shape it. It only needs to remain present – and to act when opportunity arises.”
But Dr John Battersby, a senior fellow at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, is sceptical that this week’s headline-grabbing arrest signifies Russia extending its sphere of interest further south.
He questions why a Russian who had secrets he wanted to sell to the West would choose to approach New Zealand, rather than, say, the CIA with its long years of experience in the region.
And similarly, he doubts New Zealand would have agreed to run agents in Russia. “I would expect them to have passed it on to either the British or the Americans through through Five Eyes. I wouldn’t have thought we would handle this.”
He agrees that Hampton, in his speech last year, signalled a willingness to leverage the Security Intelligence Service’s foreign intelligence mandate – but he suggests that’s more likely to be through communications intercepts – the “electronic hoovering up” that is done by the Government Communications Security Bureau.
“That’s different from having a what they’ll call a ‘humint’ foreign intelligence service like MI6 or the CIA, where they are deliberately cultivating human sources from overseas.”
Newsroom has asked the Security Intelligence Service about this. An unnamed spokesperson replied that the collection of intelligence through human sources is a core function of the service. “This includes foreign intelligence.”
Does it do so on a regular basis, or just occasionally? “While NZ Security Intelligence Service strives to be as open as possible about its work, we do not discuss specifics about what proportion of our intelligence collection effort is directed towards any one particular area of focus,” the spokesperson replies.
New Zealand has been targeted by Russia, the spokesperson confirms. “The Pacific region continues to be a focus of geo-strategic competition involving several different states. Russia is a state which NZ Security Intelligence Service has highlighted publicly in the context of geo-strategic competition.”
Where to now?
It’s difficult to predict what will happen next. Perhaps, things might just go quiet and nothing further is said; perhaps it could turn out to be a big nothing, and the man is acquitted; perhaps Russia might decide to embarrass New Zealand and the West by parading the man through the courts. Regardless, Battersby says the ball’s in Russia’s court.
New Zealand’s own security threat environment reports name Russia as a risk. “Russia’s interference with the Russian community in New Zealand likely includes primarily monitoring and attempting to shape this community’s online behaviours.”
“Some states, including China, Russia and Iran, are willing to engage in covert or deceptive activity in order to influence discussions and decisions, or gain access to technology and information that can help them meet these goals,” the latest report says. “New Zealand has been targeted by some of these activities. The Indo-Pacific is a focal point for geostrategic competition between major powers.”
Russia alleges the 55-year-old man approached the New Zealand intelligence service (which it pointedly notes is a member of the Five Eyes security grouping) and offered to provide information. He is alleged to have used email and messaging apps to pass on material that “could be used against Russia’s security”.
All this cloak and dagger may well bring to mind the embarrassing 1981 incident when the SIS officer accidentally left behind his briefcase in suburban Wellington, containing his business cards, a copy of Penthouse magazine, three cold meat pies, and notes from a diplomatic dinner party conversation with a German diplomat.
But it would be unwise to dismiss the service’s new flirtation with global scandal too lightly.
Because this time, it involves a Russian regime spoiling for a fight – and of course an unnamed middle-aged man in a white jacket who now faces a long time in jail. “Those who are planning to commit treason,” warns an unnamed Russian security officer in state news agency Tass, “should remember that this particularly serious crime carries a penalty of up to life imprisonment.”
This analysis was first published in the Newsroom Pro subscriber newsletter. If you’re interested in seeing more content like this, you can subscribe here.
