Meet Sergey Naryshkin, Putin’s spymaster in Ukraine

On a cool October day in Moscow in 2017, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, stepped up to the microphone at an outdoor ceremony to unveil a statue honouring a notable predecessor.

‘The name of Pavel Fitin is returning to our history,’ Naryshkin said of the man who ran the Soviet Union’s foreign spying apparatus during world war two. A heroic bronze version of the wartime Fitin, winter coat draped over his shoulders, loomed over Naryshkin and the other dignitaries. Fitin had filed dozens of intelligence reports repeatedly warning Josef Stalin of Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the Soviet Union (to no avail, it must be said, a fact that went unmentioned in Russian news accounts of the ceremony).

Five years later, Naryishkin, a trim 67-year-old who favours nicely tailored business suits and understated ties, has the Nazis on his mind again — at least as a useful Kremlin propaganda line.