Latvian State Security Service: Russia recruits criminals, China recruits academics

Latvia's State Security Service (VDD) has published its annual public overview in English of its activities in 2025, following on from a similar publication by another Latvian security service, the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) at the end of January, as previously reported. 

The VDD report unsurprisingly points out that last year aggressor state Russia’s intelligence and security services continued to pose the biggest threat to Latvia’s national security and says that "they organised a multitude of activities against our country. These include malign activities directed against state infrastructure, aggressive intelligence activities and psychological operations aimed at influencing the public opinion." 

Likewise, Russia continued its usual efforts at pumping out propaganda and disinformation on the internet.  

"Belarusian and Chinese intelligence and security services also continued to pose risks to Latvia’s national security. Terrorism risks pertaining to individual radicalisation cases of Latvian residents and potential entry into Latvia of foreigners who support terrorism also remained relevant," said the VDD.

China recruits academics

The section on China makes the most interesting reading, and the rising superpower is given considerably more pages than in previous reports. The security service does admit that "China’s intelligence and security services did not implement aggressive intelligence activities against Latvia" while continuing to warn about various perceived threats from interactions with China.

"The priority of this country’s intelligence and security services was to establish and strengthen positions of influence in different domains with the long-term goal of influencing the public opinion and fostering decision making in our country favourable to the interests of China," says the VDD – though arguably the same could be said of numerous other countries.

"According to information obtained by VDD, representatives of Latvia’s academic and scientific community, politicians, entrepreneurs, as well as representatives of the culture sector took the opportunity to go on paid visits to China. Following these trips, the persons consciously and sometimes without acknowledging became lobbyists for China’s interests – called for closer cooperation with China and disseminated official statements of the Chinese Communist Party about strategically important questions to China," claims the VDD.

Sadly it does not provide any concrete examples or names of people who it believes have become "lobbyists" for China after a visit.

"In the Service’s assessment, China retained its most significant influence in Latvia’s academic and research environment. Namely, China continued to use the already existing cooperation formats, such as the network of Confucius Institutes and cooperation agreements with Latvia’s higher education institutions, and offer new ones. The Service also found that cooperation offers in the academic sector were one of the priorities during the visits of China’s delegations and Confucius Institute’s management to several Latvian municipalities," adds the VDD.

While scientific cooperation with China in fields of strategic importance is connected with risks of unauthorised transfer of intellectual property and technologies, academic cooperation in the humanities, which might seem harmless enough "can negatively affect academic freedom, namely, encourage abstention from research on topics sensitive or undesirable for China," the VDD states.

Indeed, the VDD even goes so far as to suggest that academics tell the security service about any "suspicious cases of contact [from China] or cooperation offers on LinkedIn or other social networking sites" and that they pay for their own trips to China.

If an impoverished academic does manage to scrape together the cash for a Chinese trip, the VDD provides several practical tips on what to do and, more importantly, not do while there. These tips include using a temporary 'burner' phone with a pre-paid SIM card which can be disposed of after returning to Latvia; not plugging in any USB sticks or other data devices received in China, not connecting remotely to any Latvian systems while in China and "paying attention to untypical or increased interest of China’s representatives regarding professional endeavours or specific questions, as well as attempts to establish non-formal communication."

Basically, be wary and don't mistake purposeful flattery – to which many academics are far from immune – for traditional Chinese hospitality. 

Russia recruits criminals

If China is trying to use big-brained academics and researchers for its own purposes, Russia's typical recruitment drive is of a rather cruder character. Here, the VDD also makes some interesting observations, particularly with regard to the hiring modus operandi of Russian security services, which boils down to getting others to do their dirty work where possible – including criminals – but trying to insert layers of intermediaries to muddy their connection to the Russian state.

"Multi-layer agent network recruitment took place both in the digital space, using online messaging applications, and through targeted search for perpetrators in the criminal environment. VDD detected that both former and current inmates were approached, which were useful as intermediaries and executors in Latvia," says the VDD.

Criminals recruited to perform actions on Russia's behalf were viewed as “'single-use agents', whose fate was of no concern to [the Russian security services]" adds the VDD.

The VDD has a fairly wide remit with its areas of activity including counterintelligence, protection of official secrets, protection of constitutional order, strengthening the security of the information space, promoting economic security, counterterrorism, pre-trial investigation and protection of visiting VIPs.

The Annual Report in English on the activities of VDD during 2025 is available .

If, by any chance, you would like to report possible contact with an officer of a foreign intelligence or security service you can inform the VDD by calling the 24/7 hotline +371 6720 8964, by e-mail [email protected], or by visiting them (by previous appointment only) at 207 Brīvības gatve, Rīga. The VDD guarantees the confidentiality of the information and its provider.