Russia’s Assassins: How Moscow’s Secret SSD Unit Targets the West and the CIA

 

Russian assassins aren’t just a spy-thriller trope—they’re the sharp edge of a real shadow war unfolding worldwide

     Ever feel like the rules used to matter, but somewhere along the way, they just... stopped? Especially in the world of spies and shadows, there were unspoken codes. One of them: don’t kill each other’s operatives—especially not on foreign soil. It was messy. Risky. The kind of thing that sparked political firestorms. Sure, espionage was always ugly—spying, sabotage, hacking—but murder? That used to be the line.

     Russia’s not interested in that line anymore.

     There's a unit deep inside Moscow’s intel machinery called SSD—the Department of Special Tasks. That name may sound bureaucratic, but what they do is anything but. Think car bombs, assassinations, sabotage plots, even planting explosives on planes. SSD isn’t just waging a new Cold War—they’re already deep into it. And they don’t care who notices, as long as the job gets done.

     Word inside Western intelligence is that SSD absorbed the GRU’s old hit squad, Unit 29155. If that rings a bell, it's because they’ve been linked to poisonings, explosions, and just about every dirty op that ends in a closed casket. These aren’t the guys who care about headlines—unless they’re the kind that list body counts.

     And this is where fiction starts to rub elbows with fact.

     In PAYBACK, a Russian assassin goes rogue—or so it seems. He’s not taking out diplomats or high-value assets. He’s hunting young CIA operatives. Handpicked. Rising stars. Kids in a top-secret Mentorship Program, all full of ambition and promise—until someone starts dropping them one by one. These aren't random hits. They're messages. Psychological warfare aimed directly at Langley.

     First, a CIA analyst gets gunned down just as she slides her key into her apartment door. Long day at the Russian Desk—ends in blood. Two more, taken out with pinpoint sniper shots. Not accidents. Not coincidences. Somebody’s playing chess, and the CIA is down three pawns before they know the game’s begun.

     Corey Pearson—Langley's top spymaster—is called in to stop the bleeding. He and his elite sleeper cell team start peeling back layers of the operation, and what they uncover goes way beyond revenge. From the alleyways of Zurich to the power corridors of NATO, the clues lead to a conspiracy buried deep in Western intelligence. Pearson finally tracks the killer to a forgotten KGB safehouse in the Swiss countryside. They capture him alive, but it’s not over. He’s bait now. The goal? Draw out the Kremlin’s real players—the ones pulling the strings.

     Sounds like fiction? Maybe. But take a look around.

     Alexander Litvinenko. Poisoned in London with radioactive polonium. Sergei Skripal and his daughter, nearly killed by Novichok in Salisbury. Alexei Navalny? Same poison, different target. These weren’t chaotic killings during wartime. These were deliberate, targeted, surgical. Executions, in cities that should have been safe.

     And the pattern isn’t just about silencing critics or rogue agents. SSD and other Russian units have allegedly gone after German CEOs, planted bombs, even rigged airplanes. Ukrainian intelligence officers have been car-bombed. Maksym Shapoval—remember the name—was blown up in Kyiv while investigating Russian war crimes. That’s not a thriller plot. That’s a headline.

     And here’s the part that should make all of us sit up: it’s not just Europe anymore.

     The U.S. is seeing this danger creep closer. In Florida, a former Russian intelligence officer who helped the CIA was tailed and photographed near his home. Nobody pulled the trigger that time. But if you know how these things go, that’s how it starts. First, they follow. Then they wait. Then someone disappears.

     That’s what makes PAYBACK feel more like a warning than a novel. The kills. The sniper setups. The brazen reach of Moscow’s assassins. SSD doesn’t just act like they’re above the rules—they behave like the rules were made for weaker players.

     Once a country decides that borders and treaties don’t apply to them, nothing’s off-limits. Safehouses stop being safe. Langley starts feeling like a target zone. Salisbury or Silver Spring—it’s all fair game if Moscow’s calling the shots.

     So what now?

     The West has to wake up. And fast. If Russia’s going to play this game, it needs to cost them. Publicly. Politically. Financially. We need to shine light on the assassinations and call them what they are. And we need to do a hell of a lot more to protect the people on the front lines—analysts, defectors, journalists, allies—because if we keep treating this as Cold War throwback theater, we’re going to lose real lives.

     We also need to get sharper at counter-intelligence. The scenarios in PAYBACK—the sniper hits, the betrayals, the moles inside NATO—they shouldn’t feel plausible. But they do. Because we’re not just dealing with spy-versus-spy anymore. This is war by assassination. Terror without armies. Chess played with bullets.

     At the end of the spy thriller, Corey Pearson figures out what’s really driving the mission. It’s not orders. It’s not policy. It’s personal. It’s about payback.

     And maybe that’s where we are now, too. The rules have changed. Time we started acting like we know it.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.