This article was originally published by Real Clear Defense.

In the late 1990s, I would take the Moscow metro to Lubyanka Square and walk into the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service — sometimes several times a week.

Inside, I met directly with Russian counterparts to work active cases: kidnappings, financial crimes and corruption investigations that reached into Russian institutions themselves. There were no elaborate protocols or rigid channels. We worked through problems in real time, often on the basis of professional trust rather than formal agreement.

For a brief period following the collapse of the Soviet Union — roughly from the mid-1990s into the early 2000s — this kind of sustained, practical cooperation between United States and Russian security services was not only possible but actively pursued within defined limits.

Today, it seems almost implausible.

As an FBI legal attaché in Moscow — and later working across the former Soviet space with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe — I saw firsthand how this cooperation functioned in practice. It was real. It was productive. And its collapse left behind more than a diplomatic void — it contributed to a fragmented operational landscape that continues to shape security risks across the region today.

At the operational level, engagement with Russian counterparts often unfolded in ways that defied expectation. Even within institutions traditionally viewed as adversarial, there was a pragmatic willingness to engage directly on shared criminal threats when interests aligned. That engagement sometimes extended across multiple levels of authority, including senior leadership.

The first time I met Vladimir Putin in 1998, he had just been appointed director of Russia’s Federal Security Service. At the time, I was working to build cooperation between U.S. and Russian law enforcement at a moment when such engagement was not only possible but actively encouraged within practical limits on........

© The Moscow Times