Attack on Ukraine wasn’t a “strategic surprise” – head of Swiss intelligence

The director of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) Christian Dussey claims that throughout the war in Ukraine, cyberattacks and disinformation have grown to be important battlegrounds for foreign intelligence.

According to Christian Dussey, “the attack [on Ukraine] didn’t come as a strategic surprise.” “We projected a window of around a month for an attack after the Beijing Olympics finished on February 20, 2022, with a high likelihood starting in January 2022.”

Nevertheless, just as meteorologists can’t guarantee when a storm will arrive, intelligence agencies can’t predict with certainty when an attack would occur, according to Dussey, who took over as FIS head in April 2022 after holding the position of Swiss ambassador to Iran. If there was an error, it was that we failed to appreciate President Putin’s propensity for taking chances, he continued. The intelligence division has to improve in the future at assessing the capabilities and intentions of rivals as well as at clearly conveying information to authorities.

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The conflict in Ukraine has also shown how crucial the cyberspace battlefield is to information warfare as well as national security. While the war takes place on the field of battle, we must also “fight for the narrative” in the face of growing misinformation. Dussey continued by saying that since the war began, the intelligence service has noticed an increase in cyberattacks. With the increasing importance of technology, he doesn’t anticipate this changing any time soon. “Whether it be in artificial intelligence or synthetic biology. Anything can quickly turn into a weapon”, according to Dussey.