Russian Sleeper Cells Don't Scare Me || July 16, 2026
The idea of sleeper agents being embedded in the U.S. is largely unrealistic. In contrast, the far more realistic threats that should concern you are short-term operatives carrying out intelligence-gathering or financial activities.
The Hollywood special "sleeper cells" are only worth the investment for major assassinations or mass-casualty events, not routine sabotage or espionage. Whereas, planting foreign intelligence operatives through legal means and for shorter periods makes much more sense. However, the U.S. can typically detect this kind of thing through its vast and interconnected signal detection network.
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Comments (28)
He might not be a sleeper agent because its quite obvious that he is a Russian agent but your president could fit the sleeper agent image.
Trump is a Russian agent lol
Im not sure who is who, but if Natasha was the smarter one, then Natasha is Putin in drag, and Boris is Trump with a mustache. You don't need sleeper cells if you have enough komprmat bank loans to run your real life Manchurian Candidate, as Trump's own disclosures just validated Russian involvement in his election.
Regarding the US intelligence community, I think in some cases it might be more of "we had..." vs "we have...". Seems the current administration has gutted a lot of organizations.
One was just our DNI, you know the one with the skunk stripe
Is worry more about Israel.
Trump is another story... What's his gig w/Putin???
Other than the former South African regime and their (former) head of DOGE who caused massive and lasting damage to the US government’s capabilities and prestige in a large number of areas
How is that you don't appear to be able to get access to Israels sleeper cells operating all over the place - especially to ones in Iran?? How come CIA doesn't have them?? The United States would have much better resources to operate these things than any one else.
Peter didn’t watch The Americans… ;-)
Bridget: Best opening episode, ever. ("Why is everyone so punctual, in this business?") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OhlZJHiMmU
I’m pretty sure Alex Jones was a sleeper cell, but he exploded in his car so I guess we’re safe
What about Iranian sleeper cells? Russians, at least, don't have a martyrdom complex. Most Iranians are lovely people but the fanatics in charge scare the crap out of me.
With the recent events that have transpired I'm guessing the Iranians are discussing retaliation options against a certain administration leader and his family. But as PZ has suggested, likely more operators rather than sleeper cells.
What about “The Americans” and 9/11? Other than that we have never had sleeper cells in the US.
9/11 was not sleeper cells. You're disregarding the actual meaning of that term. The conspirators were short-time tasked with simply being in the US and, in a couple of cases, getting just enough pilot training to manage the flight controls of airliners. "The Americans" was very well done (albeit with implausibly amped-up action/drama for entertainment purposes) fiction, set in the 1980s, and inspired by FBI's round-up of ten actual Soviet KGB deep-cover agents in 2010, "Operation Ghost Stories", breaking up the "Illegals Program". Producer and series creator Joe Weisberg had been a CIA officer, and knew the case. The ten had tried to build contacts with academics, industrialists, and policymakers to gain access to intelligence, but according to court records had never succeeded.
The overlapping authority of law enforcement agencies is a feature not a bug. We have a massive sleeper cell inside the federal government stealing data and selling it to the Chinese - it's called DOGE.
Would they look like Natasha and Bullwinkle ?
We can only "hope"!
Sounds like something a sleeper agent would say.
check the White House
Sometimes the most effective thing a spy can do is read the local news.
I think there's another question that needs to be asked here. How often does Russia expend valuable resources on something that never pays off? I think sleeper agents are kind of like nuclear weapons too. They're something you keep in your arsenal, but hope you never have to fully deploy because of the potential for blowback. Also, there's the whole matter of Havana syndrome, or "anomalous health incidents" as the government likes to call them.
Peter, are You gunuh take Ryan McBeth up on his bet? You may get a Free-Hoodie out of it ... Whoooh- 😙 Well? ... 😺
McBeth is a weirdo, with a poor quality episode like that trash - it deserves to be ignored.
Well, that's good... One less thing. :)
Is this an older video, or do you really have snow in Colorado in July?
They do indeed have snow in summer on high altitude mountains in the summer.