Does the old heart still beat? A dual interpretation of Russian active measures

This study analyses interest-enforcement operations conducted by Russian national security services within legal and security-policy frameworks to shape foreign political, economic, and military conditions while concealing executive involvement. Using a case study of former communist Hungarian state security services, it shows that Russian “active measures” are neither ad hoc intelligence activities nor functional equivalents of U.S. covert action. A Soviet-era dual concept—treating active measures as both strategic foreign policy instruments and offensive counterintelligence—persists in post-Soviet Russia. The study argues that Russian war ideologies create structural conditions enabling these operations, requiring definitions focused on ideologically grounded decision-making rather than tools.