Here's what doesn't check out with this story. All dictators have multiple spy agencies that spy on each other. That's the only way for a dictator to stay in p

Here's what doesn't check out with this story. All dictators have multiple spy agencies that spy on each other. That's the only way for a dictator to stay in power, and ultimately to stay alive. The goal of these spy agencies is to catch the conspirators before they can stage the coup. That's the one job they need to be good at. Of course, they also have an official job, but that's a secondary concern. Competence and integrity are optional, maybe even counterproductive. So, how do all these spy agencies spy on each other? They keep files. Lots of files. Everybody has a file on everybody. And Putin, as a God from the sky, can see everything. One person can lie, but not 10 competing ones. So, he's going to know who embezzles money, how much, on which yachts and mistresses they are spending the money, everything, all the dirt. The problem is not that his spy embezzled the bribes. For sure they embezzled some, but not all. It's that they were incompetent. They didn't know who to bribe, how to make sure those bribed will play the role assigned to them, and the bribe fund was probably not that large to begin with. Oh, and the Ukrainians are not that weak at the spying game either. Remember, they were part of the Soviet Union, they had all the playbooks that Putin's people had too. As for the leaks to the US to dissuade Putin. Well, that's just a nice cover for US's spies themselves. You think the US really doesn't have any spies in Russia? Think again.