Coincidence Takes a Lot of Planning

Coincidence Takes a Lot of Planning

From Narativ with Zev Shalev (Audio) by Zev Shalev

July 16, 2026 · 38 min

About this episode

Jacob Kaarsbo discusses his experiences in military intelligence and the implications of Russian operations in diplomacy.

Jacob Kaarsbo spent a career inside Danish military intelligence. From 2005 to 2007, on loan to Denmark’s foreign ministry, he sat at the United Nations Security Council during Denmark’s rotating turn — working Kosovo, Bosnia and Georgia, and meeting Russia’s ambassador Vitaly Churkin more than once a week, in the open sessions and the closed chambers behind them. “He didn’t look like your typical Russian diplomat,” he said. “He looked quite fit… He spoke English really well.” Churkin, he said, was “a pro.” Then Zev asked the question the whole story turns on: diplomat, or intelligence officer? Kaarsbo did not hedge. “Exactly,” he said. Churkin carried the diplomatic dossier and, in Kaarsbo’s assessment, “another dossier where he was likely an intelligence professional — also an operative.” A spy in an ambassador’s chair, and a good one. Kaarsbo learned the rest the way most people did — later. Churkin dropped dead in New York in February 2017, a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration. No U.S. autopsy followed; the Russians handled it. “His cause of death could be anything, because we only know this from the Russians,” Kaarsbo said. Then he offered the line that framed the hour…

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