The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published a video on its YouTube channel, where it encourages Russians to establish contact with the agency through an anonymous information system "Tor".
The short video accompanied by text in Russian says that "CIA wants to know the truth about Russia and we are looking for reliable people who know and can tell us this truth. Your information may be more valuable than you think."
"Are you a military officer? Do you work in intelligence, diplomacy, science, high technology, or deal with people who do? Do you have information about the economy or the top leadership of the Russian Federation? Contact us. Maybe the people around you don't want to hear the truth. We want,” the CIA video says, as solitary individuals are seen weighing their decisions: a man walking through the snow, a woman peering through a window.
At the end of the CIA video, a man and a woman appear in separate scenes, their fingers hovering over cellphone screens displaying a website for the US Central Intelligence Agency: Contact the CIA.
Asked about the video by the Reuters news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not paid attention to it.
"We all know very well that the CIA and other Western intelligence services are not reducing their activity on the territory of our country," Mr. Peskov said, stressing that "he was convinced that the Russian special services were tracking the activity of Western espionage".
According to the Reuters news agency, some Russians reacted skeptically to the video on social media, saying it appeared to be a "provocation" by Russia's FSB security service.
Russia has one of the strictest treason laws, and just last month parliament approved an increase in the penalty, from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment.
In the nearly 15 months of war in Ukraine, this is not the first time the CIA has sought the help of Russian citizens. Even a year ago, the CIA published some instructions on how Russian citizens from Russia can contact the agency securely using the Tor program.
By using the Tor program, users avoid tracking while browsing. The Tor navigation program was originally created with the support of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and has been managed by a non-profit organization since 2006.
The program has long been used by those seeking more privacy: dissidents in authoritarian countries and people who want to avoid censorship and blocking software.