- Article 1

EURASIA INSIGHT

TBILISI CLAIMS RUSSIAN TROOP MOVEMENTS IN RESPONSE TO SPY DISPUTE Diana Petriashvili 9/29/06

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The espionage dispute between Georgia and Russia intensified September 29, with a statement from the Georgian Interior Ministry that Russian military "movements" had begun in territory bordering Georgia, and accusations from Moscow that the arrest of four Russian officers is part of a scheme to advance Georgia’s ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Preliminary hearings for the four Russian officers in Georgian custody have been held, while an evacuation of the families of Russian diplomats from Tbilisi has begun.

The Georgian Interior Ministry claimed that the government had detected signs of movement among Russian forces near the Georgian border, and preparations for "large-scale navy maneuvers in the Black Sea."

"Russia’s 58th Army, which is deployed in North Ossetia, is being mobilized and there is information that [the Army] is moving in [the] direction of Georgia," Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told a news conference late September 28, according to a bulletin posted on the online news site Civil Georgia. "In addition, certain movements are being noticed on the Russian military base in Akhalkalaki [in southern Georgia]. I cannot understand why Russia needs [these] moves."

Moscow did not initially respond to the claim.

A Tbilisi city court September 29 ordered two Russian officers arrested in the Georgian capital, Dmitri Kazantsyev and Alexander Savva, and seven Georgian citizens to be held in pre-trial detention. The Russian consul in Georgia, Valeri Vasiliyev, told Rustavi-2 television that a lawyer for the officers had not been allowed into the courtroom. The Georgian Interior Ministry did not immediately comment on the allegation.

The court also passed the same ruling for Konstantin Pichugin, who has been accused of espionage, but who is believed to be inside Russia’s regional military headquarters, which remained surrounded by police for a second day. Moscow has refused to surrender Pichugin.

The two other officers in custody, Alexander Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov, were arrested in the Black Sea port town of Batumi, and will have a separate hearing.

Russian Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko, who has been recalled to Moscow for consultations, told local media that he would not return to Georgia until the four officers are released. "Georgia should release the Russian officers immediately and should apologize for their arrest," Kovalenko told reporters at Tbilisi airport.

A Russian plane left Tbilisi at 4:35pm carrying 51 Russian citizens, including 25 children. A second evacuation is planned for September 30, Andrei Popov, commander of Russian forces in the Caucasus, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Television footage of the departure showed mostly women and children, dogged by photographers and television cameras, preparing to board an Ilyushin plane, while personnel loaded luggage and what appeared to be cases of Borjomi spring water, a key Georgian export that has been banned by Russia for

alleged impurities. In response to questions from Georgian reporters, most departing Russians asserted that they plan to return.

Commenting on the evacuation, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili termed the event "an excessive move" and "a propagandistic gesture."

"Everyone knows that the Russians will never face any threat in Georgia," Saakashvili told reporters. "The Georgian people are very hospitable, and this is widely known. In Georgia, they are probably more secure than in their own state."

Meanwhile, attempts at dialogue continued to falter. A previously scheduled meeting between Georgian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Giorgi Manjgaladze and Russian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Grigory Karasin was canceled.

Russia on September 28 asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn Georgia for taking "dangerous and unacceptable" steps that could destabilize the region, but the initiative was not carried. Members have requested greater information about the situation.

While the international community considers its response, Moscow has criticized Georgia’s NATO ambitions for contributing to the crisis. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov implied that the arrest of the officers was part of Georgia’s plan to secure membership in the Western defense alliance, adding that Saakashvili had chosen the "military way" to resolve conflicts with the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "First, they want to get out the Russian peacekeepers by any means possible . . . then use force to resolve the conflicts . . . and then, submit their application to NATO," he told a news briefing in Slovenia broadcast by Russian State Television.

At a meeting between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Russian Council in Slovenia, Ivanov charged that unnamed NATO members have been supplying Georgia with military equipment. "Some members of NATO - shall we call them the younger generation? - are supplying Georgia with arms and ammunition of Soviet production," news agencies quoted Ivanov as saying in an apparent reference to Eastern European countries who joined the alliance in 2004.

Western members of NATO are reacting with caution. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called for "moderation and de-escalation" by both Georgia and Russia. De Hoop Scheffer went on to stress that "this is not an issue in where NATO will play any direct role."

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that he had discussed the topic with Ivanov, and stated that the situation is "a subject of great interest" to Washington, the American Forces Press Service reported.

Reactions among Georgians to the spy spat differed.

"I am glad these spies were arrested. I hope that Georgia will not step aside from the chosen strategy in the future," Nuka Basharuli, a refugee from Abkhazia who now lives in Moscow. "But the recent developments are likely to have a negative impact on me and my family," he added referring to a possible worsening of attitudes among Russians towards the thousands of Georgians living and working in Russia.

The daily Georgian newspaper Rezonansi (Resonance) played on this worry with a front-page story September 29 that warned readers that massive deportations and arrests of Georgians in Russia will begin soon.

Others saw a political angle. "This spy arrest suits both countries in their struggle for votes," Giorgi Lezhava, a 26-year-old Tbilisi resident, said, "Russia pretends that it has no spies, while Georgia pretends that there is something extraordinary about Russian spies in Georgia. It’s all about politics."

Some Georgian opposition members have evaluated the recent developments as part of the government’s campaign strategy for nationwide local elections scheduled for October 5, while others maintain that Georgians should stand together in the face of Russian "aggression."

"The arrest of the Russian officers is definitely connected to the election campaign," David Berdzenishvili, a leader of the Republican Party, commented to EurasiaNet. "The authorities want to show that they are strong and able to destroy any enemy of Georgia."

David Zourabichvili, a parliamentarian from the Democratic Front uniting the Conservative and Republican Parties, took a different tact. The Russian officers’ activities constitute "an [act of] aggression and [a] threat towards the entire state and the Georgian people," Zourabichvili told a September 29 news briefing, Civil Georgia reported. "Against this background, we call on everyone [to unite] in order to avoid giving Russia a reason for speculation about alleged . . . fighting inside Georgia."

Editor’s Note: Diana Petriashvili is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

Posted September 29, 2006 © Eurasianet http://www.eurasianet.org

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Russia jails double agent for selling secrets to Britain(China Daily)Updated: 2006-08-11 06:38

A Moscow court sentenced a double agent to 13 years behind bars yesterday, after he sold details of Russia's spy network to Britain for a decade.

In a case that echoed Cold War spy scandals, a military court found 55-year-old Sergei Skripal guilty of high treason and spying and stripped him of his rank of colonel, Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky told reporters.

Skripal was "turned" by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, in the mid-1990s and until his arrest in 2004 he helped blow the cover of dozens of Russian spies working abroad, an intelligence source said.

"Through his actions, the spy inflicted significant damage on the defence capability and security of the state," said a spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's main successor agency.

Prosecutors said Skripal was paid as much as US$200,000 which was deposited in a Spanish bank account. Officials said he pleaded guilty at his trial held behind closed doors.

The FSB's counter-intelligence department arrested Skripal after a probe. Details of the case have not previously been made public.

Russian television showed footage of a shocked Skripal being arrested by five men and then shoved into a van with his arms held behind his back. He will serve his sentence in

a high security prison.

It also showed grainy images of Skripal, carrying a luxury Louis Vuitton bag, going through security checks at an airport. Rossiya television station said he was flying to meet his handlers in Britain.

It was unclear which Russian intelligence service employed him. The FSB said he was a colonel in the Russian military. The military has its own intelligence arm called the GRU.

"He was turned by British special services in the mid-1990s and until 2004, when he was detained, he gave them top secret information for money," Yevgeny Komissarov, a spokesman for the military court, told reporters.

The FSB said Skripal continued to sell information to MI6 even after he left his post in the special services in 1999.

Spy scandals, recurring thorns in British-Russian relations during the Cold War, are less frequent now although both sides accuse each other of running spying operations.

In January, Russian television broadcast footage which it said showed British spies transmitting information via a receiver concealed inside a rock on a Moscow street. It said the spies were working as diplomats at the British Embassy.

The FSB backed up the television report but none of the diplomats was ordered to leave the country.

Under Russia's criminal code, treason can be punished with a sentence of 12 to 20 years. Skripal has 10 days to appeal against the conviction.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow declined to comment. "It is our policy never to comment on intelligence matters," the spokesman said.

(China Daily 08/11/2006 page7)

 

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- Article 3

Aid groups shelter spies, Russia says

Foreign organizations fear new harassmentReutersPublished: December 19, 2006

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MOSCOW: The state security chief stepped up pressure on international nongovernmental organizations and charities Tuesday, saying they were increasingly being used as cover for foreign spying operations.

President Vladimir Putin has already accused foreign powers of using the groups for political ends, and this year signed a law on nongovernmental organizations that activists say could be used to harass charities.

Nikolai Patrushev, head of the FSB state security service, said 27 foreign spies and 89 agents working for foreign secret services had been caught in 2006.

The Itar-Tass news agency quoted Patrushev as saying there had been a sharp increase in foreign espionage from "legal positions" in society.

He said the spies were sheltering behind "many international funds and organizations that deal with questions of widening cooperation and humanitarian help, as well as media organizations."

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His Cold War-style rhetoric reflected the new mood in Moscow. Foreign spy scares are back in vogue following the poisoning of a former Russian agent in London and a spy scandal in January, when Russia accused British diplomats of using a fake rock placed by a roadside to transmit secret messages.

Patrushev singled out the Danish Refugee Council, a private humanitarian organization that works with people displaced by fighting or economic ruin in Chechnya.

"Employees of this nongovernment organization, contrary to official announcements of their aims, are systematically trying to collect biased information about the political, economic and military situation in the North Caucasus," Patrushev said.

Arne Vaagen, head of the Danish Refugee Council's international department, rejected the accusation.

"I am very surprised because we have never been subject to such allegations before and I hope that he has been quoted correctly," he said by telephone from Denmark. "We are in the area due to humanitarian needs and we have been there for 6 years with the support of the Russian authorities."

3 positive tests for radiation

Tests on three more London hotel workers have shown that they were exposed to low levels of polonium 210, the radioactive isotope that killed the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, health officials told Reuters Tuesday in London.

The tests bring to 10 the number of people in Britain found to have been contaminated by polonium 210 since Litvinenko died on Nov. 23. He accused the Kremlin of assassinating him. Moscow has strongly denied the charge.

The Health Protection Agency said that the 10 people exposed, 9 hotel workers and Litvinenko's wife, faced no immediate danger and that any long-term health risk was likely to be very small

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#2No spy tunnel under Russian embassy in US - source MOSCOW, March 8 (Reuters) - A Russian counter-intelligence source dismissedreports of a U.S. eavesdropping tunnel under the Russian embassy, saying onThursday they were Washington's invention and aimed at discrediting spysuspect Robert Hanssen.

The New York Times reported the existence of the tunnel last weekend, quotingunnamed officials as saying they believed the operation had been betrayed tothe Russians by FBI agent Hanssen, who is charged with selling secrets to

Moscow.

RIA news agency quoted a high-ranking source in Russian counter-intelligenceas saying the Cold War-era tunnel never existed, and the report wasintentionally circulated by U.S. secret services to "burden Hanssen with aserious guilt."

It quoted the unnamed source as saying, "Americans had little" concreteevidence against Hanssen, especially him "being an agent...and dug (thetunnel) under him."

The source said rather than digging a special tunnel under the Soviet andthen Russian embassy, U.S. secret services used underground telephone cablelines, sewage pipes and the central pillars of the building to spy on thepersonnel.

RIA said the monitoring system had been discovered and terminated by Moscowsome 10 years ago.

Russia has asked Washington for formal clarification of the tunnel reportsand said, if proved true, they would amount to a "blatant violation ofrecognised norms of international law."

A U.S. federal judge on Monday ordered Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent who wasarrested on February 18 and faces life in prison or death if convicted, tostay in jail on the grounds that the government's evidence was "exceptionallystrong."

Hanssen allegedly sold secrets to Russia and the Soviet Union since 1985,including names of double agents and U.S. electronic surveillance methods.His lawyers have said he is planning to plead not guilty.

Moscow has so far declined any official comment on the affair.

Hanssen's case is one of several espionage cases inflaming relations withWashington in recent months.

U.S. businessman Edmond Pope was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison oncharges of seeking information on a underwater torpedo. President VladimirPutin pardoned him in December.

Russian researcher Igor Sutyagin, who works for the prestigious USA andCanada institute, is on trial in a town near Moscow on charges of passingsecrets to Western handlers. He denies the charges.

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#3Los Angeles TimesAugust 11, 1999 [for personal use only]Putin Could Be Spymaster or Reformer Russia: There are indications that the new prime minister could rise abovehis KGB past to be a man of principle. By YOSEF ABRAMOWITZ, GIDEON ARONOFFYosef Abramowitz Is President of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews andPublisher of Fsumonitor.com, the Union's Web Site. Gideon Aronoff Is DeputyDirector of the Ucsj

By firing Prime Minster Sergei V. Stepashin and his government, PresidentBoris Yeltsin has, for the fourth time in 17 months, thrown Russia andRussia observers into chaos. 

This move comes at a time when reform has stalled and ethnic conflict isbrewing in the Russian north Caucasus. With his decision to designateVladimir V. Putin as his choice for prime minister, as well as hissuccessor for the July 2000 presidential election, Yeltsin has givenRussians a new figure on whom to pin their hopes and fears. 

At first glance, Putin's elevation is a choice that is not likely to sitwell with advocates of democratic reform. He is the current chief of theFederal Security Service (FSB), and a 15-year veteran of the FSB'spredecessor organization, the KGB. 

Under Putin's watch, the FSB has persecuted former navy Capt. AlexanderNikitin, an environmental researcher whose writing, based on openlyavailable sources, documented nuclear contamination by the Russian northernfleet. Nikitin was charged with treason in 1996 for his actions, and histrial in 1998 ended without a verdict. Last month, a new trial was ordered,which he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Alsolast month, the FSB opened a new investigation of Prof. Vladimir Soyfer forhis work studying the extent and effects of radiation leakage from theaccidental sinking of a nuclear submarine off Russia's Pacific coast. Theseattacks on environmental researchers and scientists directly threaten thehealth of Russia and its neighbors, and violate Russian constitutionalprovisions guaranteeing the public's right to information on environmentaldangers. 

Also, reminiscent of Soviet campaigns to control expression and informationtechnology, the FSB has recently taken steps to coerce Russian Internetservice providers into submitting all Internet traffic to FSB censorship.Here again, Putin's agency is a leading threat to freedom and democracy in

Russia. 

As in previous changes in Russia's government, however, Russians, Westerngovernments and advocates for human rights, democracy and pluralism searchthis new leader's biography for any reasons for optimism. In Putin's case,his service in the early to mid-1990s with St. Petersburg's reform-mindedmayor, Anatoly A. Sobchak, provides a glimmer of hope. With Putin'sassistance, Sobchak ensured that St. Petersburg--Russia's secondcity--would stay committed to reform and out of the control of theCommunists. 

Also positive, in the eyes of anyone concerned about anti-Semitism, fascismand extremism, were Putin's remarks in a December 1998 Izvestia interview,in which he declared, "If society does not react sharply and unambiguouslyto manifestations of extremism, the danger of a repeat of the situation inGermany in 1933-45 will arise." At a time when anti-Semitic terroristincidents are becoming all too common in downtown Moscow, a prime ministerwho understands the dangers that extremism holds for Russia's minorities,and even the nation's democracy, is a positive sign. 

While the world will have to wait and see what kind of prime minister Putinturns out to be, the preeminence of principle over personality has neverbeen more important. Governments, international financial institutions andnongovernmental organizations should, instead of focusing exclusively onPutin's biography, present a set of principled actions as a litmus test forhis commitment to lead Russia toward a democratic future. These actionsshould include the following: * The Russian government must commit itself to an aggressive battle againstanti-Semitic terrorists and other extremist forces throughout the country,making it clear that hate will not be part of a new Russian politics. * The discriminatory Russian law on religion must be reformed, consistentwith the Russian Constitution and international human rights agreements. * The false espionage cases against Nikitin and Soyfer, signs of dangerousrepressive tendencies in Russia, must be ended. * The criminal justice system--including pretrial detention and prisonconditions--remains essentially as it was during the Soviet period and isin need of significant reform to promote respect for the rule of law andprotect public health. 

The world is faced with two very different visions of the man chosen tolead Russia into the 21st century--a spymaster out to squelch freeexpression or a valiant combatant for democracy and reform. When faced withthe principled challenge outlined above, the key question is, "Will thereal Vladimir V. Putin please stand up." 

- Article 6

#1 - JRL 9216 - JRL Home

Moscow Times August 4, 2005 ABC Case Looks Like a Populist Warning By Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer

The Foreign Ministry's decision not to extend the accreditation of ABC television journalists appears to be meant as a reminder to all foreign journalists not to cross a line when writing about Chechnya and especially rebel leaders.

But it is unlikely to change foreign media coverage about Russia or even have much effect on ABC.

Journalists, including Russian nationals, employed by foreign media organizations cannot work legally in Russia without accreditation.

The Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that this was the violation committed by Andrei Babitsky, the journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who interviewed warlord Shamil Basayev in Chechnya in June.

A ministry official said Babitsky was required by law to obtain two forms of accreditation: one from the Foreign Ministry and the other from the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for areas that are designated as zones of counterterrorism operations, Interfax reported.

Babitsky, who said he obtained the interview on his own time, offered it to ABC, which broadcast it despite Russian objections last Thursday.

A Foreign Ministry official said by telephone Wednesday that the ministry believed ABC itself violated a 1976 United Nations pact in airing the interview. The official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights set limits on freedom of speech when it comes to protecting state security and public order and also bans propaganda for war.

The last time the ministry denied accreditation to a foreign journalist was in early 2000, when Frank Hoefling, a German reporter with N24 television, "falsified news reports from Chechnya," ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said Wednesday.

Authorities accused Hoefling of stealing graphic photographs and a film depicting dead bodies in Chechnya that had been taken by Russian journalists and presenting them on N24 as evidence of the brutality of federal troops against Chechen civilians.

The ministry official said several foreign journalists had been denied accreditation or not had their accreditation extended in recent years, but refused to elaborate.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, a media freedom watchdog, said that the latest case was on July 6, 2003, when the ministry denied accreditation to Ali Astamirov, a journalist working for Agence France Presse. Astamirov, who had applied for accreditation the previous December, was abducted in Ingushetia on the same day that his accreditation was denied, and he has not been seen since.

CPJ representative Alex Lupis called the case "an example where denial of accreditation was used to ensure that a journalist remained legally vulnerable to harassment by government officials."

Several foreign reporters interviewed for this report acknowledged that they had traveled to Chechnya without obtaining Interior Ministry accreditation, which would have immediately restricted their movements to officially approved routes and limited the independence of their reporting.

By doing this, reporters put themselves at risk of losing their Foreign Ministry accreditation and permission to continue working in Russia.

While most earlier denials were done quietly, the ABC decision is a warning to foreign and Russian journalists to curb their professional zeal when writing about Chechnya and terrorism, said Boris Makarenko, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies. "It is clearly a demonstrative action," he said.

Recalling that authorities have issued several warnings to the Kommersant newspaper for publishing interviews with Chechen rebel leaders over the past several years, Makarenko said they were forced to some extent to react harshly to ABC to prevent Russian media from being able to accuse them of double standards.

The big problem with the ABC report was that it gave a voice to Basayev, who has a $10 million bounty on his head but continues to elude federal forces, said Mark Franchetti, a journalist for Britain's The Sunday Times who has reported extensively from Chechnya and was the only journalist allowed into Moscow's Dubrovka theater during the 2002 crisis to interview the attackers' leader. Basayev has claimed responsibility for the attack, which ended with 129 hostages dead. "They viewed this broadcast as a provocation, as giving a tribune to terrorists," Franchetti said.

Basayev's appearance on U.S. television enraged Russian officials, especially the military and security officials in the Kremlin siloviki, because he is a living reminder of their failure to deliver on their promises to "waste terrorists in the outhouse," said Boris Timoshenko, a media analyst with the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a Moscow-based media freedom watchdog.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Sunday demanded that ABC be punished, saying he had barred military personnel from speaking with the network.

Dmitry Orlov, an analyst with the Agency for Political and Economic Communications, said authorities were overreacting in an attempt to show the Russian public how strong Russia is in its dealings with the Americans.

"In fact, it is clear to everyone that this whole brouhaha will most likely pass unnoticed by most Americans," he said.

Makarenko said it was only a matter of time before the Foreign Ministry allowed new ABC reporters to work in Russia, noting that the ministry had left open the door to the possibility that it will issue accreditation to any ABC journalists who replace the current staff.

"It is not a question of giving or not giving accreditation to ABC; it is a question of doing it a year or two from now," he said.

The accreditation of ABC's Moscow chief bureau, Tomasz Rolski, expires in November, and the accreditation of the office's 10 staffers expires in the coming months.

Journalists have long faced problems in Russia and the Soviet Union. In 1982, ABC bureau chief Anne Garrels was expelled when a pedestrian died after being struck by a car she drove in Moscow. Prior to the accident, Garrels had received a warning from the Foreign Ministry for visiting a family of dissidents and had been criticized in a Soviet magazine. Garrels reports for National Public Radio from Baghdad, where she has been stationed since the start of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

In 1986, Nicholas Daniloff of U.S. News and World Report was arrested and charged with espionage before being expelled. The Russian government in 1995 revoked the visa of Steve LeVine, a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post, citing a technicality involving the revoking of his visa in Uzbekistan.

Petra Prochazkova, a Czech journalist who reported extensively from both sides during the first conflict in Chechnya, was denied visa in 2001.

Vibeke Sperling, a correspondent for the Danish newspaper Politiken, said last year that she had been denied a visa because of her reporting about Chechnya and other sensitive issues.

- Article 7

#3Russian Researcher Spy Trial OpensDecember 26, 2000By ANNA DOLGOV KALUGA, Russia (AP) - A Russian court on Tuesday opened the espionage trialof a Russian researcher whose family maintains his only crime was readingbetween the lines of military publications.

After Tuesday's hearing, the judges agreed to adjourn proceedings until Jan.9 so defendant Igor Sutyagin, an analyst from the respected Russian thinktank, the Institute for USA and Canada studies, could carefully review thecharges.

The trial is the latest in a spate of espionage trials that human rightsactivists say signals a witch hunt for independent thinkers and a revival ofthe vast powers of Russia's secret services.

The Federal Security Service, which initiated the case, says it is crackingdown on spies who it says infiltrated Russia amid the lawlessness thatfollowed the Soviet collapse.

The closed-door trial took place in a run-down courthouse in Kaluga, theregional center of Sutyagin's home province southwest of Moscow.

It came three weeks after American businessman Edmond Pope was sentenced to20 years in prison for espionage. Pope was pardoned by President VladimirPutin on Dec. 14 and has returned to the United States.

The security service, the main successor to the KGB, claims that Sutyagingave classified information on Russia's military to other countries. Theindictment says he was enlisted to spy for the United States when he attendeda scientific conference in Britain in early 1998, his lawyer VladimirVasiltsov said.

The USA and Canada Institute has no access to government secrets, andSutyagin maintains he only worked with open sources - analyzing and piecingtogether separate bits of information.

``He would spread newspaper clippings around on the floor, on the couch, onhis desk, everywhere - and crawl between them,'' said Sutyagin's wife, IrinaManannikova. ``This would go on for days - and something would be born thatway.''

The powers of Russia's special services had been trimmed under ex-PresidentBoris Yeltsin. But many analysts say the agencies have started to reclaimtheir ground since Putin, a 16-year veteran of the KGB, came to power.

In addition to the Pope case, two Russian environmental researchers haverecently been tried for treason and espionage for reporting on environmentalpollution by the Russian Navy.

``All these cases seemed to have been produced from the same template,'' saidSutyagin's father, Vyacheslav. ``The election of Putin may have served as asignal to start instilling fear.''

Files in Sutyagin's study at his home hold scores of newspaper clippings,mostly from the official military daily Krasnaya Zvezda, with some passagesunderlined in red.

Sutyagin subscribed to several periodicals - a fact that seemed suspicious toinvestigators who searched his apartment at the time of his arrest in October1999.

``They actually asked: By what right do you subscribe to 15 periodicals at atime?'' said the researcher's father.

Sutyagin, 35, spent 14 months in jail awaiting trial. But he received thefirst details of the charges against him only in an indictment filed on Dec.15, according to his lawyer.

The U.S. State Department would not comment on the case Tuesday

- Article 8

#13Transitions Onlinewww.tol.czFebruary 24, 2003Russia Sentences 73-Year-Old Academic for SpyingBy Vladimir Kovalev

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia--A 73-year-old professor from Moscow State TechnicalUniversity has been convicted of treason and sentenced to an eight-yearsuspended prison term and five years probation.

The sentence against Anatoly Babkin is the latest in what liberalpoliticians see as a concerted campaign by the Federal Security Services(FSB) to target environmentalists and scientists with charges of espionage.

FSB officials have charged that in 1999 and 2000, Babkin handed over secretdocuments containing technical data on the high-speed underwater Shkvalmissile to Edmund Pope, an American businessman convicted of espionage inDecember 2000. Pope was sentenced to 20 years in prison but was pardoned byRussian President Vladimir Putin the same month.

Babkin has steadfastly denied the charged.

“I am not guilty of treason. This is an absolutely political case, and Iwill definitely appeal to be acquitted,” Babkin said in a 20 Februaryarticle from the daily Kommersant.

The General Prosecutor’s Office expressed disappointment over the sentence,which representative Ilya Yerokhin called “too soft for treason,”Kommersant reported. According to the Russian Criminal Code, a convictionon charges of treason carries with it a sentence of 12 to 20 years in prison.

“The soft sentence was probably given in light of Babkin’s merits: He has aPh.D. in technical sciences and is old,” Yerokhin added.

Babkin has insisted that he did not hand over any materials to Pope, sayingthat he was sending reports to the University of Pennsylvania according toa $28,000 agreement on scientific exchanges signed between the Americanuniversity and Moscow State Technical University in 1996.

FSB sources charged that Babkin, as head of the project, was supposed tohand over four reports but gave five instead. They further charged thatPope and Babkin were detained at a hotel in April 2000 with the fifthreport in their custody, Kommersant reported.

Pavel Astakhov, Babkin’s lawyer, insisted that the scientist could not havehanded over the documents about the Shkval missile because he had notworked on topics linked to projects involving high-speed underwatermissiles since 1969.

The Shkval missile is described as an “exceptionally high-speed unguidedunderwater missile which has no equivalent in the West” and “travels at avelocity that would give a targeted vessel very little chance to performevasive action,” by the Fas.org Military Analyst Network web site.

“The name [”Shkval”] appeared in the investigation materials only because

investigators insisted on including it and [Babkin] was bound to agreebecause he could not resist such a pressure while he was in a pre-strokecondition,” Astakhov was quoted as saying by the independentRosbusinessconsulting (RBC) news agency on 14 February.

The RBC report said Babkin’s wife testified that Babkin’s statements hadbeen made under pressure from FSB investigators.

“The Technical University’s security service and an FSB representative knewabout work we were doing according to the agreement, and Americans had beenvisiting the university with their permission,” Babkin said in a 21February interview with Kommersant.

“Besides, there were two FSB representatives who came to my department in1998. I told them the details of the work. When I asked them if I shouldquit it, they told me to continue. I informed the university’s securityservices about this conversation,” he charged.

Liberal Russian politicians called the case another example of spy mania.

“Such cases as that of Grigory Pasko, Alexander Nikitin, and Igor Sutyaginare parts of this campaign. Spy mania does not only takes Russia back totimes of totalitarianism, but, in this case, contributes to brain drain,”Sergei Mitrokhin, a State Duma lawmaker and the Yabloko party deputy head,said on 20 February, the Regions.ru information web site reported.

“The threat of finding themselves as victims of a witch hunt could be thelast straw for scientists who have already been left in a tenuous positionby the state,” Mitrokhin added.

- Article 9

#7Russia says main threat weak economy, not abroadBy Adam Tanner 

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Russia, which for generations has blamed foreignarmies and spies for many of its woes, said on Thursday a faltering economywas the greatest threat to national security. The conclusion came in a new national security doctrine approved by PresidentBoris Yeltsin, a document Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin said was morethan six years in the making. A statement by the Security Council, an advisory body to Yeltsin, said thedanger of an external military threat could not be excluded. ``But the likelihood of global armed conflict is not great,'' it said. ``At the present time the main security threat to Russia has a non-military

character...The crisis condition of the economy is named as the most importantcomplex of threats to Russia's security.'' The full text of the doctrine was not released. But a four-page summary saidRussia needed a smaller professional army with nuclear weapons its maindeterrent against aggression. ``There is no talk about some kind of dismantling of the army or a completedisarmament,'' the document said. ``But to adequately respond to threats of amilitary character we need a smaller, compact, mobile professional army.'' ``Without a doubt nuclear forces will remain the main mechanism of deterrenceto sober up' any potential aggressor,'' it said. In a fundamental change from Soviet-era thinking, the new document saysdefending the interests of the individual is the country's paramount task. In a separate interview on Thursday, the head of Russia's ForeignIntelligenceService, a descendent of the Soviet KGB, said Western spies continued to makeRussia their primary target. ``Antagonism between intelligence services never came to an end, and with theend of the Cold War, despite some expectations, it even grew stronger,''Interfax news agency quoted Vyacheslav Trubnikov as saying. He said Western spy services ``were showing a great interest in differentsides of the internal political and economic situation in Russia, and aretrying to influence processes occurring in our country.'' Earlier this month Russia pressed espionage charges against an Americantelephone technician, who protested his innocence. He is free on bail butconfined to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Russia earlier this year said it reserved the right to use nuclear weaponsfirst in the event of war, ending a Soviet-era pledge not to be the first touse nuclear weapons. The summary released on Thursday did not give details on what the Russiangovernment would do to better secure the country's economic stability,although achieving economic growth has been Moscow's primary task for years. Russia has experienced economic depression since the fall of communism in1991, although government officials say 1998 should finally bring someeconomic growth.

- Article 10

#12BBC MonitoringRussia: Expelled US diplomats leave MoscowSource: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0400 gmt 01 Jul 01

[Presenter] The deadline set for 50 American diplomats declared as personaenon gratae in March 2000 to leave Russia expired at midnight [2000 gmt 30

June]. This step was a response to the expulsion of 50 Russianrepresentatives from Washington.

Andrey Oskochinskiy gives the details.

[Correspondent] The mass exchange of personae non gratae between Moscow andWashingtom did not become the beginning of a new cold war. Spying is ashabitial in international relations as diplomacy itself. Even closestfriends and neighbours, like the USA and Canada, are trying to discloseeach other's military and industrial secrets.

[Omitted: known facts about Russian-US spying scandal in March 2001]

Today the case was finalized de facto. As we know, all those who wererequested to leave both Moscow and Washington are already at home.

More serious matters, like settlement of [international] crises, NATOenlargement and NMD, stay on the agenda. They cannot be resolved by asingle telephone conversation [between Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanovand US Secretary of State Colin Powell]

[broadcast at 04'00'47": video shows street scenes in Moscow andWashington, US papers' still pages and archive footage of US Secretary ofState Colin Powell]

#13BBC MonitoringRussian TV channel comments on present state of the spy warSource: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0800 gmt 1 Jul 01

Here is our observer Anton Khrekov on how the Western intelligence servicesoperate today, what principles their employees adhere to and what thepublic attitude is to their work.

[Khrekov] To an American they are the exploits of a spy, but for a Russianthey are the base actions of a traitor. And vice versa. It was so for manyyears, and, after a short gap, that situation is being revived. It turnsout that ideology had nothing to do with it.

That does not mean that the intelligence services of the Western countriesinfinitely trust each other and don't spy on the territory of allies. Ifthe notorious Richard Tomlinson, who has declared war on Britain's MI6, isto be believed, they do carry out such spying, and spend a lot of money onit.

It is another matter that the special services try not to wash their dirtylinen in public. And if the slips of intelligence work suddenly turn intoblunders and exposures, this means someone wants it that way.

[Man captioned as "former intelligence agent Gevorg Vartanyan"] You knowthat our diplomats were recently expelled [from the USA]. We gave anappropriate response. Then they quietened down. There were reports in thepress that up to 50 people would be expelled. If they expelled that number,we would expel that number, wouldn't we? You can always find compromisingevidence against any embassy staff.

[Khrekov] In America under Clinton, the CIA and FBI, the world's mostpowerful special services, were already complaining they were poorly paidand undervalued... In Russia, there are the same complaints, but even fewerresources. And everything falls into place. In the USA they bring into playthe scenario of Robert Hanssen and George Trofimoff, who face the deathpenalty, no less. In Russia they reach again for the busted card calledJohn Tobin, and additionally catch US teachers allegedly involved ineconomic espionage. Spies are everywhere, there are a lot of them and oneneeds to defend oneself...

[Man captioned as "Sergey Kondrashov, former deputy chief of the First MainDirectorate of the KGB of the USSR", with two other, seated, men,apparently at news conference] The contradiction of national interestsremains. This contradiction of our national interests remains. And so doesthe need to obtain information.

[Khrekov] It is another matter that as the ideology has receded, so haseverything that had seemed unshakeably, including principles. Hanssenhaggles as at a market stall with US justice and extracts a federal pensionfor his wife. Trofimoff swears that he pretended to be a KGB agent in orderto get money from the Russians and then from his own people. And OlegKalugin mixed incompatible genres - public politician and dissident whochose freedom and the silent double agent who supplied secret serviceinformation to the West.

Spying and spy mania existed in the past and exist today, and there'snothing to be done about it. But earlier it was exciting, patriotic andpartly profitable. Now it is just very profitable. And we will have to getused to that.

- Article 11

<Espionage> case investigated in Primorsky Krai

Author: Leonid Vinogradov

VLADIVOSTOK, May 8 (Itar-Tass) - Investigators are working behind closed doors on a case of two Russian citizens charged with <espionage> in the Primorsky Krai

Maritime Territory).

A source in the in the territorial office of the Federal Security Service said on Thursday that a public investigation might result in the divulgence of classified information, which could do harm to <Russia>'s national interests.

The territorial office of the FSB has declared that the recent press comments on the <espionage case "are not within the press purview and do not be taken to judge on the criminal case on its merit."permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=4923279

- Article 12

Kuwait secret service not linked with orgs RF accuses of <espionage>

Author: Maria Pshenichnikova

MOSCOW, May 13 (Itar-Tass) - The Kuwaiti secret services have no relation to charity organizations that <Russia> accuses of acts of <espionage>, Kuwaiti charge d'affaires ad interim in Moscow Abdulwahab al-Saqer told Itar-Tass on Friday.

Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev said in the State Duma on Thursday that the Russian secret service averted several acts of <espionage> prepared by secret services of the United States, Britain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. "These countries carried out acts of <espionage> by non-governmental organizations operating in <Russia>," he emphasized.

The charge d'affaires noted that "claims are mostly made to the society of social reforms and the society of Islamic heritage revival." "According to information available to the embassy, both societies carried out humanitarian operations and provided aid to refugees in Ingushetia," he pointed out.

The charge d'affaires said he presented a note to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday. "We ask <Russia> to provide proofs of their guilt, so that our authorities could take measures or ban the activity of these organizations. We praise highly relations with <Russia and are seeking to develop them comprehensively," the Kuwaiti charge d'affaires indicated.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=7710562

- Article 13

Zaporozhsky sentenced to imprisonment for

<espionage>Author:

MOSCOW, June 11 (Itar-Tass) -- The Moscow district court martial has sentenced Colonel Alexander Zaporozhsky, former officer of a Russian security service, to 18 years of imprisonment for high treason in the form of <espionage>, a representative of the court told Itar-Tass.

Zaporozhsky was arrested in 2001 in Moscow on suspicion that he had passed information about the Russian intelligence service to representatives of the security service of one of Western countries for five years, thus inflicting serious damage on <Russia's security.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=5017861

- Article 14

RUSSIA-US-SPY-DEPARTURE

URGENT -- US diplomat accused of espionage> leaves Moscow.

MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) - A U.S. diplomat in Moscow, Cheri Leberknight, accused of <espionage> and declared persona non grata, left <Russia on Friday morning, a source in the Federal Security Service (FSB) told Tass.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=3016831

- Article 15

SPY-COURT-SENTENCE. Convicted Chinese citizen collects data on Russia> rockets.

Author: By Vladimir Khody

IRKUTSK, Eastern Siberia, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - A Chinese citizen, convicted for <espionage> in Irkutsk, was engaged in data-collection on deployment of Russian missile systems Topol-M and S-400, head of the regional branch of the Russian Federal Security Service for the Irkutsk Region Vladimir Subbotin told the local press on Thursday.

According to the security chief, the spy was nabbed red-handed, while he was receiving secret documents from a Russian citizen. The career officer of a foreign secret service had conducted <espionage> activities under the guise of a staff member of a commercial firm's office.

Last May, the court sentenced him to a 10-year jail term in a maximum security prison under the article "<Espionage".permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2929140

- Article 16

RUSSIA-US-ESPIONAGE

US woman diplomat arrested on espionage> charges.

By Igor Trifonov

MOSCOW, November 30 (Itar-Tass) - A woman staff member of the U.S. embassy, Cheri Leberknight, has been arrested in Moscow on charges of <espionage>. Cheri Leberknight, an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, was second secretary of the political department of the U.S. embassy, a spokesman for the public relations centre of the Federal Security Service told Tass.

According to his information, Leberknight was arrested on Monday night during an act of <espionage>. A list of objects, confiscated from her during the arrest, was made right there. All those objects make it clear that the activities of Cheri Leberknight, 33, were incompatible with her official status in <Russia>. The investigation, carried out by FSS officers, exposed her as a spy.

After the arrest Cheri Leberknight was taken to the FSS waiting-rook. A representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. consul in <Russia> were summoned there. <Russia> made a strong protest to the United States over the incident. FSS continues to investigate all the circumstances, connected with her <espionage> activities.

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy refused to answer the question of Tass about whether Cheri Leberknight will be sent home, or the embassy will wait for the Russian side to declare her to be "persona non grata."

All the circumstances of the case are being carefully examined, the sources said, but gave no comment. "A special statement of the embassy is now being drafted," the sources added.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that the Russian side was also drafting a statement in connection with the arrest of the U.S. woman diplomat in Moscow on charges of <espionage>, which will give <Russia's assessment of the incident.

"We do hope the incident will not affect the bilateral Russian-American relations, although it will hardly promote the improvement of the climate in relations between the two countries," Ivanov said.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=3015843

- Article 17

Court sentences Russian to 12 years for <espionage>Author:

MOSCOW, August 23 (Itar-Tass) - The Moscow City Court on Wednesday sentenced

a Russian citizen to 12 years in prison for <espionage> in favour of Germany.

Andrei Dumenkov got under surveillance of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2004, the FSB press service said.

According to documents submitted to court, "Dumenkov is seeking to acquire, for a reward, information constituting state secrets for its further transfer to German secret services."

"In the course of a series of probes FSB officers confirmed Dumenkov' s connection with Germany's secret service, the seriousness of his intention to acquire secret information on orders from a foreign intelligence service, as well as concrete facts of his gathering information on new missile samples," the FSB press service said.

The FSB also obtained intelligence regarding Dumenkov's plans to move to Germany for permanent residence. N

"In order to prevent damage to <Russia's defence capability from Dumenkov's unlawful actions, it was decided to detain him while he was trying to take secret military materials out of the country," the FSB said.

Dumenkov confessed to his crime.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=9939944

- Article 18

RUSSIA-SPY-VERDICT. Russian citizen Valery Oyamaye indicted for espionage>.

Author:

MOSCOW, April 23 (Itar-Tass) - Russian citizen Valery Oyamaye has been pleaded guilty of high treason in the form of <espionage> and sentenced to seven years in prison by the Moscow District city court.

The FSB public relations department told Itar-Tass on Monday that Oyamaye had collaborated with British and Estonian secret services. He was arrested last March on charges of high treason (<espionage>). Court hearings into the spy case against Oyamaye ended on April 20.

Valery Oyamaye - ex-officer of the Russian secret services, was recruited in Tallinn by British intelligence agent Pablo Miller who had been first secretary of the British Embassy in Estonia.

Oyamaye's bosses were particularly interested in information about the staff of the Russian foreign intelligence service, its activities abroad, information about FSB, FAPSI federal agency of governmental information and communication, Russian intelligence agents in British secret services, <Russia>'s leading politicians and ways of establishing contact with them.

Oyamaye has been incriminated in collecting and selling classified information, which

was <Russia's state secrets, to foreign intelligence agents.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2900560

- Article 19

Colonel accused of <espionage> to stand trial in Moscow court

Author:

MOSCOW, February 27 (Itar-Tass) - Court of the Moscow Military District has accepted for trial the case of a Russian army colonel accused of a transfer of confidential data to a foreign intelligence service.

A source at the court said Thursday the first hearing in the courtroom has been scheduled for March 13.

Colonel Alexander Zaporozhny, Ret., will stand trial under Article 275 of <Russia>'s Criminal Code stipulating punishment for high treason in the form of <espionage>, the source said.

Officers at the court's press service confirmed Col Zaporozhny is accused of leaking classified data, but they declined from any further comments before an official announcement of the verdict

Other sources indicate Col Zaporozhny leaked information on the activity of <Russia's secret services and thus inflicted damage on national security.

The man is now kept at Moscow's Lefortovo custody. He is due to stand a trial in closed sessions.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=4734833

- Article 20

RUSSIA-US-ESPIONAGE

American Bliss detained on suspicion of espionage> in <Russia>.

By Olga Semyonova

MOSCOW, December 1 (Itar-Tass) -- Richard L. Bliss, an American national working for the Qualcoumm Co., was detained by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers in South European <Russia>'s Rostov region on November 25 on suspicion of <espionage>, sources in the Federal Security Service's head office in Moscow told Itar-Tass today.

The FSB sources said Bliss had been found using special satellite receivers illegally brought into <Russia to conduct topography-and geodesy survey work.

The investigation department of the FSB regional office in Rostov has instituted criminal proceedings against the American national under Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2938617

- Article 21

FINLAND-RUSSIA-SPY. Finland exposes defense officer who spied for Russia>.

Author: By Andrei Popov

HELSINKI, May 10 (Itar-Tass) -A Finnish defense officer accused of spying for <Russia> served in a special department of the Finnish armed forces in Vaasa, Helsinki-based sources said on Thursday.

A court hearing on this <espionage> case will be held in Finland on May 28-29. The main headquarters of the Finnish defense forces noticed a leakage of military secrets early this spring. The facts were handed over to Finland's security police whose Chief Seppo Nevala has confirmed that an inquiry into the case is under way.

The Finnish side, including the military agency, has not commented <espionage reports so far. Finland does not know for sure what type of classified information was handed over to the Russian side.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2902512

- Article 22

Court bans disclosure of details in <espionage> case agnst physicist

Author: Igor Kritsky

KRASNOYARSK, September 20 (Itar-Tass) -- The territorial court banned the disclosure of details in the case against physicist Valentin Danilov who is accused of <espionage> for China and fraud, lawyer Yelena Yevmenova said on Monday.

According to her, the court has taken the measure in order to fully observe the rule of court. "The court imposed a strict ban for disclosing the details of this case," the lawyer emphasized.

Defendant Danilov said after the court session that "the judge is seeking to do its best for the trial to be held according to the law, and the ruling would be final and not

subject to appeal."

The former director of the thermophysical centre is accused of passing to a Chinese company of some information constituting state secrets. Under an order of the Chinese side he has made the stand at which the impact of space on artificial satellites of the Earth can be modeled. The Federal Security Service regional department arrested the physicist in the beginning of 2001 and he has been on recognizance since September 2003. The jury considered the guilt of the defendant unproved on December 29, 2003 and acquitted him that the prosecutor's office of the Krasnoyarsk territory appealed. The Supreme Court of <Russia vacated the acquittal verdict to Danilov on July 23 and sent the case for repeated consideration with a new composition of court.

The next court session will be held on September 22.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=6754732

- Article 23

RUSSIA-COURT-ESPIONAGE. Moscow court to have new hearings on Moiseyev case.

Author: By Sergei Bodanov

MOSCOW, December 6 (Itar-Tass) - The Moscow city court will have new hearings on the case of former diplomat Valentin Moiseyev, who is charged with espionage> in favor of South Korea, on Wednesday.

The trial was nearing completion and Moiseyev was expected to make the final statement when an ailment of judge Tatiana Gubanova came and the hearings were started anew. The lawyers protested against that at the Supreme Court, and Moiseyev asked the Supreme Court to discuss his case in <Russia>'s highest judicial instance.

Moiseyev, the then deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry's first Asian department, was detained by the Federal Security Service in summer 1998 and accused of <espionage.

He was sentenced to 12 years in custody by the Moscow city court in December 1999, but the Supreme Court annulled the sentence on July 25 and sent the case back for a new consideration. The trial has been on since September 5.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2882353

- Article 24

RUSSIA-TRIAL-OBUKHOV. Supreme Court to view appeal by Obukhov convicted of espionage>.

Author: By Sergei Bodanov

MOSCOW, January 16 (Itar-Tass) -- The judicial board for appeals at the Supreme Court of <Russia> will consider on Tuesday an appeal lodged by the lawyers of former Russian diplomat Platon Obukhov, sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of <espionage for British Mi-6 intelligence.

A son of a high-ranking Russian diplomat, Obukhov, 28, was arrested by the federal security service (FSS) in April 1995. According to the FSS, Obukhov was enlisted as an agent of the British intelligence in July 1995, and since then, furnished his British employers with information of state secrecy grading he had access to as a staff diplomat at the Foreign Ministry.

A trial at the Moscow city court went on for almost three years. The counsel for the defence insisted on that Obukhov had serious mental problems, and vindicated their assertion quoting a whole series of blood-curdling detective stories and spy novels written by Obukhov, who would not stop his literary work even at the pre-trial detention centre. Nevertheless, the medical evidence in court established Obukhov's full sanity, and on July 27, 2000, the Moscow city court sentenced the former diplomat to 11 years in prison and forfeiture of estate.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2887300

- Article 25

RUSSIA-FM-PASKO

Foreign links of Navy officer charged with espionage> unclear.

By Andrei Kirillov

MOSCOW, December 3 (Itar-Tass) -- The Russian Foreign Ministry "has no sufficient information" on the case of Grigory Pasko, an officer of the Russian Pacific fleet suspected of <espionage>. "The case has got no international echo so far," a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

Contributor to the Boyevaya Vakhta (Combat Vigil) newspaper Pasko was detained on November 23 at Vladivostok airport on his arrival from a private trip to Japan. He was charged with high treason.

The Russian FM representative said that Pasko was a Russian citizen, and therefore it was Russian law-enforcement bodies that should be concerned with him. "If they reveal something, and furnish valid proof, talks with a particular country may be launched," the diplomat said. As of now, things have not taken the turn, he emphasized.

Law-enforcement bodies in <Russia also do not officially link

Pasko case" with a particular country.

Pasko had been carrying out his own investigation into the ways of utilising liquid radioactive wastes at the Pacific fleet. He had published a number of articles devoted to environmental danger the Maritime territory faced. However, Itar-Tass reported from

Vladivostok that the version of Pasko struggling for environmental safety of the region had not been verified during the investigation.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2938941

- Article 26

WEEK IN REVIEW. SCIENTIST GETS SUSPENDED SENTENCE IN <ESPIONAGE> TRIAL

Author: By Adam Kleszewski. The Moscow News

A court in the Russian central province of Bashkortostan has handed down a verdict of "guilty" to a Russian physicist, charged with illegally exporting dual-use technology to South Korea.

The scientist was given a suspended six-year term in prison with a three-year probation period, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.

Oskar A. Kaibyshev, 66, head and founder of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Metallic Superplasticity Problems, originally faced up to 10 years in prison for illegally exporting technology and research to a subsidiary of South Korea's Hankook Tire Manufacturing Co.

Throughout the proceedings, Kaibyshev has maintained his innocence, claiming the technology developed at a research institute that he headed had already been patented in the United States and other countries.

"This is not secret work," Kaibyshev said in an interview with The Washington Post last year.

"All this technology and the scientific basis for this technology were publicly known. We worked openly. All our contracts were official."

The court also barred Kaibyshev from holding any high posts in research institutes for a period of three years and ordered him to pay a fine of 3,518,000 rubles to the research institute where he had worked, news website Gazeta.Ru reported

Kaibyshev's lawyers say they will appeal against the verdict.

This is yet another in a string of sentences for Russian scientists accused of <espionage> in recent years but a rare one where the defendant received a suspended sentence.

Currently, another Russian physicist and mathematician from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Oleg Korobeinikov, is being charged with disclosing state secrets. Korobeinikov, who is the head of a laboratory of combustion kinetics at the Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion in the Siberian department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has given a written pledge not to leave the area and is being questioned by Federal Security Service (FSB) investigators.

In February, a Moscow court ruled to keep a member of the Russian Academy of

Cosmonautics, Igor Reshetin, under custody after he was charged with sharing dual-purpose technologies with a Chinese corporation.

In 2004, a court in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, sentenced physicist Valentin Danilov to 14 years in prison for spying for China. The investigation found that Danilov passed the results of research conducted for the Russian Defense Ministry to Chinese colleagues in 1999. Danilov was also accused of embezzling over 450,000 rubles belonging to the university where he worked.

That same year another scholar, Igor Sutyagin, an arms control expert at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies was found guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a court of jury in a closed trial. Sutyagin who was arrested in 1999 and has been imprisoned ever since, was accused of having five meetings with British intelligence agents to whom he passed materials on Russian weapons systems, as well as plans for <Russia>'s strategic nuclear forces, information about the structure and condition of the Russian early warning system, and other sensitive data. He pleaded not guilty claiming that, as a civilian researcher he did not have access to any classified materials and that his research was based entirely on non-classified sources, such as newspaper articles and publicly available government documents. At the time, Sutyagin's lawyer, as well as various human rights groups called the sentence illegal, primarily because "the judge had dismissed the previous jury who had taken part in the proceedings, without any procedural reason and had selected the new jury." There were also several former officers of <Russia>'s security services among the new jurors.

In 2003, oceanographer Vladimir Shchurov, earlier accused by the FSB of smuggling sensitive equipment from Vladivostok to China, was acquitted of <espionage and given a two-year suspended sentence for disclosing state secrets. He was later amnestied.

MNpermanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=9888677

- Article 27

RUSSIA-US-ESPIONAGE

Russia> denies GDR agents spied for Moscow.

By Olga Semynova

MOSCOW, October 7 (Itar-Tass) - A spokeswoman for <Russia>'s Foreign Intelligence Service said on Tuesday foreign media allegation, that three Americans who had been detained on <espionage> charges were involved in spying for <Russia>, were entirely "groundless."

"These are absolutely groundless conjectures," Tatyana Samolis told Itar-Tass.

The three, namely Kurt Alan Stand, 42, his wife Theresa Squillacote, 39, and James Clark, 49, were arrested last week on charges of spying for East Germany in 1970s and 1980s and those of conspiracy to commit <espionage for the former USSR and the Russian Federation, and South Africa.

The affidavit says Stand was recruited by East Germany's intelligence service already back in 1972, then, four years later, he involved in his spying activity Clark and his wife between 1979 and 1981. The three have been known for their pro- Marxist ideas.

After the unification of East and West Germanies, the FBI said in its act of indictment, the three began looking for new patrons trying to establish contacts with the Soviet and later with the Russian secret services.

In addition, though a South African collaborator, they tried to sell off classified information to the South African government.

The three were arrested after two of them handed over classified documents to a FBI agent posing as a South African intelligence officer.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2932804

- Article 28

Court: Officer Spied for Estonia

Author: Oksana Yablokova. Staff Writer

A Moscow district military court convicted a former border guard officer of spying for Estonia and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The sentence on charges of state treason is considerably milder than the 14 years handed to Krasnoyarsk physicist Valentin Danilov last month on similar charges and the 17 years handed to scientist Igor Sutyagin in April.

Lieutenant Colonel Igor Vyalkov, 34, was found guilty of selling secret information to an Estonian intelligence agent in a closed trial at Moscow's Lefortovo prison, Interfax reported.

The court, which stripped Vyalkov of his military rank, found that he contacted an Estonian intelligence agent, identified by prosecutors as Zoya Kint, and passed information to her on three Russian intelligence officers.

The court, however, threw out charges that Vyalkov illegally collected and stored secret information, saying prosecutors had not provided evidence that the disclosure of the information could have inflicted damage on Russia>.

The court also dismissed a charge that Vyalkov illegally crossed the Russian-Estonian border, saying a five-year statute of limitation had expired.

Vyalkov was arrested in 2002.

Vyalkov maintained his innocence and testified that he was trying to recruit Kint, Interfax reported.

Prosecutors had asked that Vyalkov be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

It was unclear whether Vyalkov might appeal.

The case is the latest in a series of <espionage> trials. Human rights activists have condemned many of the trials as part of a new wave of spy mania. Danilov was convicted of passing classified information to Chinese companies in a retrial, which the Supreme Court ordered after he was acquitted by a jury. Fellow scientists accuse the Federal Security Service of using him and Sutyagin in an attempt to scare researchers.

But Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, which focuses on Russian secret services, said Vyalkov and other security and military servicemen are less likely to get a fair trial on spying charges than civilians like Danilov.

"Any civilian tried on <espionage> charges has a chance. At least he can make his position public and say something to justify himself," Soldatov wrote in a comment in this week's Moskovskiye Novosti.

He said human rights advocates, lawyers and journalists can help publicize a civilian's case.

"A security service officer accused of <espionage is in quite a different situation," Soldatov said. "His fate is decided quietly and discreetly, and the public will only know what [FSB] officials on Lubyanka decide is necessary to make public."permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=7162256

- Article 29

Tbilisi court denies entry to lawyer defending Russian detainee

Author: Eka Mekhuzla

TBILISI, September 29 (Itar-Tass) - One of the two lawyers defending a Russian officer detained together with another three officers in Georgia on charges of <espionage>, was not allowed to attend a closed session of Tbilisi city court hearing the case, a spokesman for the Russian Consulate in Georgia said.

"International legislation says the citizens of the country of sojourn - which, in this case, is Georgia - can act as defenders," he said.

"Representing the interests of Russian officers are two lawyers, both of them Georgian nationals," the spokesman said. "One of them was provided by the government, while the other was hired by <Russia>."

"It was the second lawyer who was not let into the courtroom," he said. "We're currently trying to clear out the causes of it."

In the meantime, the Councilor-Minister of the Russian embassy, Ivan Volynkin, said the fact of non-admission of the defender was bewildering.

"The Russian side will take all the necessary steps so that the judiciary authorities let him get into the courtroom," he said.

At the time of reporting, the closed session of the Tbilisi city court was holding trial of two Russian officers, Colonel Alexander Savva and Lieutenant-Colonel Dmitry Kazantsev, and four Georgians whom the authorities accuse of <espionage.

Another trial will be held later in the day. It involves two more Russian officers - Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Zavgorodny and Major Alexander Baranov - and seven Georgian nationals.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=10117908

- Article 30

RUSSIA-USA-SPY

US citizen arrested for spying in Russia> (adds).

MOSCOW, April 5 (Itar-Tass) -- Agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) have arrested a U.S. citizen on charges of <espionage>, Itar-Tass learned in the FSB public relations centre on Wednesday.

The agents also detained a Russian who is suspected of divulging state secrets, a centre official said.

According to the FSB, the American is a former U.S. intelligence agent who currently heads a private company. The Russian detained with him is "an expert in defence technologies employed by a Moscow organisation."

The FSB claims that the American has been establishing contacts with Russian scientists in Moscow, Novosibirsk and other cities for a long time. The agents believe he was trying "to obtain information that is considered a state secret in <Russia," the official stressed.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2848701

- Article 31

RUSSIA-US-SECRET-SERVICE

American held for spying to face trial.

By Olga Semyonova

MOSCOW, December 4 (Itar-Tass) - American citizen Richard L. Bliss, who was arrested in November on charges of conducting topography with illegally imported equipment near classified facilities in Rostov-on-Don, apparently is not the first American detained for such activities in the vicinity of Russian classified facilities after

the end of Cold War.

However, he is likely to be the first one to face a court trial.

Another such case was in August 1995 when a U.S. citizen, Jason Lynch of the West Point military academy's geography department, was detained by Russian secret services near the city of Zheleznogorsk (formerly Krasnoyarsk-26) while carrying out

unauthorized topographical survey using special geodesic equipment."

Lynch, however, was soon released since he had a substantial

ecological cover," which turned out to be enough in the then euphoria among Russian politicians who were too enthusiastic in respect of brilliant prospects for cooperation with the West.

Lynch was an official member of an international ecological expedition working under the Russian Academy of Sciences' auspices. The expedition "in conformity with its schedule, carried out radiation monitoring of the local mining and chemical works" (one of Russia>'s largest nuclear centres). The expedition sailed down the Yenisei river studying the radiation contamination in the river flood-lands and bottom sediment following the disposal of waste water used for cooling the plan's power generators.

In both cases, U.S. officials claimed no spying activity was underlying U.S. citizens' actions. It is, however, quite natural since neither of the world countries' secret services has ever confirmed involvement of its agents in <espionage>, Russian experts said.

In Bliss' case, there is also a good story covering his activity: Bliss was an engineer of the San Diego-based Qualcomm telecommunications company which has recently signed a contract with <Russia>'s Electrosvyaz to set up a radiocommunications network in Rostov.

According to Qualcomm representatives, Bliss' job was to carry out long-distance topographical survey of the region using a global positioning device (GSP) to find optimum places to install antennae.

Although these data may be necessary for a the creation of a high-tech wireless network, the information Bliss managed to collect is deemed to be "secret," experts from the Russian Federal Geodesy and Cartography Service said.

According to FSB director Nikolai Kovalyov, the FSB directorate for the Rostov region had performed its duties since

all outer indications" to <espionage> were present.

Apart from this, FSB investigators said a company representative's allegations that all devices used by Bliss had been brought to the country with due legal formalities aroused suspicion. Bliss' customs declaration, presented by the FSB chief at a news conference, had no mention of these devices. Later, Bliss admitted that he had brought in the equipment in his personal luggage.

In any case, Bliss turned out to be less lucky then Lynch for, according to well-informed sources, he will have to face <espionage charges and after the investigation is over he will be brought to trial.

permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2939192

- Article 32

Suspected spy worked for FSIN for past 3 years

MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) - The Lieutenant-Colonel detained for cooperation with Lithuanian secret services has been working for the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service /FSIN/ for the past three years, a FSIN representative told Itar-Tass.

"The man detained by Baltic Fleet counterintelligence agents on October 18, occupied the position of senior supervisor of Inspectorate # 11, FSIN department in the Kaliningrad region, in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel," the FSIN representative said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Federal Security Service said Lt-Col Vasily Khitryuk, caught red-handed, had cooperated with Lithuanian secret services for a long time.

"During the arrest, FSB agents confiscated from Khitryuk electronic recording media containing military data, thus preventing a leak of secret military information about the combat and mobilization readiness of the Baltic Fleet," the FSB public relations center underlined.

Specialists said this information is classified. "To obtain it, the traitor used his former colleagues or acquaintances serving in the Russian army or law-enforcement bodies, and at the instructions from a Lithuanian secret services talked them into passing him copies of secret documents, for remuneration," it added.

The FSB opened a criminal case over high treason. "The detainee is giving confession evidence," the FSB said.

The FSB also said its operation "prevented a leak of secret military information about the combat and mobilization readiness of the Baltic Fleet and the troops deployed in the territory of the Kaliningrad region, and incontrovertible proofs of espionage> by an agent of Lithuanian secret services have been obtained."

Spokesman for Lithuania's State Security Department /VSD/ Vitautas Malakauskas said the VSD "will not comment on the detention in Kaliningrad of responsible FSIN officer, Lt-Col of internal service Vasily Khitryuk, for his alleged cooperation with Lithuanian secret services."

Head of the committee on international affairs under the Seim /parliament/ Justinas Karosas told Tass "Lithuania does not engage in <espionage> against <Russia."

In his view, the fact of detention of Lt-Col Khitryuk in Kaliningrad is most likely a retaliatory move, or Moscow' provocation for the recent decision by Lithuania to expel a Russian diplomat from Vilnius for spying.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=10245219

- Article 33

RUSSIA-JAPAN-FM-INCIDENT. Spying scandal serving certain forces in Japan--Russian FM.

Author:

MOSCOW, September 8 (Itar-Tass) -- Spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Yakovenko on Friday told Itar-Tass that the arrest of a Japanese naval officer on suspicion of espionage> for <Russia was connected with "certain forces in Japan airing discontent over the current positive trends in the Russian-Japanese relations, which clearly showed during a recent meeting of the two countries' leaders."

"These forces resort to provocative means to cast suspicion on the constructive work being done in the interests of developing partnership between our countries," the spokesman noted. According to Yakovenko, "the Russian Foreign Ministry is closely following the situation" around the incident.

A senior Japanese naval officer was arrested on Friday on suspicion of passing military secrets to a Russian embassy official for money. Police said Shigehiro Hagisaki, a 38-year-old lieutenant commander in the Maritime Self Defence Forces "has basically admitted to the allegations."permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2869602

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- Article 34

RUSSIA-TRIAL-ESPIONAGE. Russian spy case referred to European Human Rights Court.

Author: By Yelena Napreyenko, Irina Chumakova

MOSCOW, November 9 (Itar-Tass) -- Lawyers of Russian diplomat Valentin Moiseyev, brought here to trial on charges of espionage> against <Russia, have lodged a complaint with the European Human Rights Court, Head of the Moscow-based centre of support for the international defence Karinna Moskalenko told Tass on Thursday.

Moskalenko, also Moiseyev's lawyer, said there were "solid grounds" for the appeal as "the European Human Rights Convention has been violated in the course of the legal proceedings on the case."

The Moscow City Court will meet in its next session over the case on Friday, November 10. However, Moskalenko was sure that no final judgement would be pronounced. She said that the triumph of justice might take long, and expressed hope in that the court would base its decision on reliable data. "Anyway, the verdict can be only that of not guilty," she said in conclusion.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2878504

- Article 35

FSB: 4 British Spies Uncovered

Author: Simon Saradzhyan. Staff Writers

The Federal Security Service said Monday that it had uncovered four British spies working under diplomatic cover in Moscow and that one had authorized grants for Russian nongovernmental organizations.

The four - all staff members at the British Embassy - downloaded information from transmitters concealed inside rocks, Sergei Ignatchenko, the chief spokesman for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said at a news conference for select Russian journalists.

A Russian national recruited by British intelligence left the information, Ignatchenko said.

He hinted that the four would be expelled because "their activities were incompatible with their diplomatic status" - a standard euphemism used by government agencies to accuse foreigners of <espionage>.

"The situation will be resolved at the political level," Ignatchenko said.

He said the Russian national had been arrested and admitted to spying for British intelligence.

The British Embassy declined to comment, and none of the four staff members responded to questions sent to their e-mail accounts at the British Embassy. It was unclear whether they were still in Moscow.

The Foreign Office in London said it was "concerned and surprised" at the FSB allegations.

"We reject any allegation of improper conduct in our dealings with Russian NGOs," the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"It is well known that the U.K. government has financially supported projects implemented by Russian NGOs in the field of human rights and civil society," it said. "All our assistance is given openly and aims to support the development of a healthy civil society in <Russia>."

A Foreign Office spokesman declined to comment further, saying it was Foreign Office policy not to discuss intelligence matters.

Prime Minster Tony Blair also declined to comment at a London news conference, saying he had only heard about the claims from media reports.

Rossia, the state television channel, first reported the allegations on its investigative show "Special Correspondent" on Sunday night. The channel showed footage of four men as they walked by what it said was a transmitter hidden in a hollow rock on a Moscow street. One man was shown purportedly trying to establish a connection with the transmitter using a hand-held computer.

Rossia identified the four as Marc Doe, Chris Peart, Andrew Fleming and Paul Crompton. Crompton was referred to as the assistant to the embassy's intelligence service representative, Doe as second secretary of the political section, and Pear and

Fleming as archivists.

Rossia said the FSB cracked the <espionage> operation at the end of last year. It appeared that the videotape was filmed in early fall.

Rossia showed one rock that it said Doe had used for <espionage>. Ignatchenko said the FSB was aware of two rocks and had seized one.

Rossia also said Doe had authorized transfers of grants from the Foreign Office's Global Opportunities Fund to Russian NGOs, including the Moscow Helsinki Group and the New Eurasia Foundation.

The FSB has repeatedly accused foreign intelligence services of using NGOs as cover for <espionage>, and the latest allegations served as another warning to Russian recipients of foreign funds.

A Rossia journalist concluded Sunday's report by saying that oversight over civil society "should be exercised by incorruptible people who care about the interests of their homeland and not an alien country."

Ignatchenko said a total of 12 Russian NGOs had received payments authorized by Doe. He said they included the Committee Against Torture, the Center for Development of Democracy and Protection of Human Rights and International Criminal Reform, in addition to the Helsinki group and Eurasia.

Representatives of the NGO community reacted with anger.

"It is a horrible TV program," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a veteran human rights campaigner and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, who had read a transcript of the Sunday night show.

"It's a special campaign against NGOs that has been going on for a long time," Alexeyeva said.

Citing recent controversial cases against scientists accused of spying, she said FSB officials had proved themselves inept in capturing alleged spies before and she was not convinced of the veracity of the charges this time, either.

"It sounds very ridiculous," said Dmitry Surnin, the head of the media development department at the New Eurasia Foundation, which received funding to develop small-town newspapers from the Global Opportunities Fund.

"It's clearly a provocation, another PR activity to support current attempts to tighten the grip on NGOs or eliminate them altogether," he said. "It also seems a way to answer pressure from the West."

"I think that the 'patriots' who say human rights activists are not patriots now have a new way to make their argument," said Igor Kalyarpin, the head of the Committee Against Torture, a Nizhny Novgorod-based NGO. "We don't have an easy time, and this is like a knife to the back."

The FSB might have planned the leak to Rossia as a way of preparing a defense for the new law that will place NGOs under stricter state control, said Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow branch of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. He said the leak might have been planned as early as November, when the State Duma first started considering the legislation and criticism was mounting among

Russian NGOs and in the West.

President Vladimir Putin signed the NGO law this month, and it goes into force in April.

Intelligence officers are often told not to assume certain cover identities. Safranchuk noted that the KGB was told not to send spies under the cover of the Pravda newspaper to avoid discrediting the main Soviet propaganda vehicle in case they were caught.

General Nikolai Leonov, former deputy head of the KGB's foreign intelligence department, said Monday that the Rossia report had dented his opinion of British intelligence.

"What I saw really disappointed me," said Leonov, a Duma deputy from the nationalist Rodina party. He derided the stone as not quite "super technology."

If <Russia> does expel the four, Britain will almost certainly be forced to respond tit-for-tat by expelling diplomats from the Russian Embassy in London.

Moscow and London have a history of expelling scores of alleged spies. The record was set in 1971, when Britain declared 105 Soviet diplomats personae non grata.

In 1994, Britain expelled a Russian diplomat in response to the expulsion of a man whom Russian counter-intelligence described as the chief British spy in <Russia>.

Two years later, <Russia> arrested Platon Obukhov on charges of passing secrets to British agents while working at the Russian Foreign Ministry. That year, <Russia also expelled nine British diplomats for allegedly running a spy ring. Britain responded by ordering four Russians to leave.

In 2000, the FSB announced that it had arrested a Russian on charges of working as a spy for Britain. Former intelligence officer Valery Ojamae was convicted of high treason by a Moscow court in 2001.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=8897372

- Article 36

NEWS. NAVAL OFFICER SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS FOR SELLING CLASSIFIED REPORT

Author:

A military court has sentenced Major Valeriy Sarkisyan, an employee of the Pacific Ocean Military and Naval Institute, to two years at a penal colony for disclosing state secrets, the Information Agency Novosti reported.

The Pacific Fleet military court also barred him from holding state jobs for one year, an aide to the military prosecutor of the Pacific Fleet, Yelena Sharlay, told RIA.

Sarkisyan was a researcher at the institute's laboratory for missiles and naval air force anti-ship systems. According to military prosecutors, Sarkisyan allegedly sold the text

of a thesis on military hardware designs for $1,500 in September of 2002.

The act was a breach of his obligation not to reveal the state secrets he had access to.

He used the money to buy a computer.

Rights groups have expressed concern over the imprisonment of leading science figures in Russia> for supposed <espionage allegations.

MosNews.compermanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=6652548

- Article 37

RUSSIA-REGIONS-CRIME. Russian scientist betrays space shielding secrets to Chinese.

Author: By Yuri Khots

KRASNOYARSK, April 24 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian space engineer Valentin Danilov, arrested in Krasnoyarsk on spying charges, is suspected of having passed over to foreigners the information reducing by 15 years the creation time of new-generation radiation shielding for satellite constellations, Tass learnt from a spokesman for the regional FSB department on Tuesday.

According to the FSB officer, successful research pursued by Siberian scientists makes it possible to shield the communication satellites of different purposes not only from solar radiation, but from most different interferences.

Danilov took part in the research at the Krasnoyarsk State University, and at the Applied Mechanics Research and Production Centre, a leading manufacturer of communications satellites in Russia>.

A source at the Krasnoyarsk State University told Tass that a contract Danilov had signed with the Chinese side cost over 350,000 US dollars. Danilov transferred a considerable part of the sum to a front company, whereafter he cashed the money. Danilov is therefore charged not only with <espionage but fraud as well.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2900731

- Article 38

FSB Claims Western Spies Thwarted

By Simon Saradzhyan Staff Writer

The Federal Security Service claims to have disrupted the activities of dozens of spies in Russia> last year in what officers say reflects growing Western interest in defense

industry know-how.

FSB director Nikolai Patrushev told a meeting of his agency's top brass Wednesday that the activities of 65 professional foreign spies were disrupted and 30 Russian citizens were prevented from passing over secrets to foreign services in 1999. In comparison, the FSB foiled the activities of 11 professional spies all over <Russia> in 1998 and caught 19 Russians trying to sell classified information to foreign secret services.

Neither Patrushev nor other FSB officers would disclose how many of these people were arrested or deported.

One FSB officer said last year's increase showed that Western <espionage> activities have become more active. "Their activities are, of course, not as intensive as they were during the Cold War, but I can say that attempts of industrial <espionage> were on the rise last year," said the officer, who asked not to be named.

Some cases were reported. For instance, a second secretary of the U.S. Embassy, Cheri Leberknight, was detained in Moscow in November and accused of receiving information from a Defense Ministry serviceman. She was told to leave the country.

In July, the FSB said Justine Hamilton, who coordinated a student exchange program in Voronezh, had collected "secret environmental maps" for the CIA in the central Russian city. Hamilton had returned to the United States by July, but was denied an entry visa when she tried to come back to <Russia>.

In addition to exposing suspected foreign spies, the FSB was busy trying to nab Russian citizens, including environmental researchers, suspected of spying for foreign secret services.

Russian regions that have large defense companies and military facilities on their soil attracted most of the foreign secret services' attention last year, one officer at a regional FSB branch said.

Svetlana Korneva, spokeswoman for the FSB's Saratov area branch, said her colleagues detected 24 suspected professional spies visiting the Volga region last year. She said all of them were employees of foreign companies and organizations and were careful not to try "anything illegal."

The 24 were followed until they left the region, which has the Balakovskaya atomic station, a base of long-range bombers, the NIIKhIT rocket battery plant and one Yakovlev aircraft production plant on its soil. While failing to net any foreign spies last year, the Saratov FSB branch detained local resident Yury Bibikov on allegations he contacted the CIA to try to sell sensitive information on <Russia>'s relations with Iraq.

The neighboring region of Samara also has seen at least 20 suspected foreign agents in the past two years, according to the local FSB branch. The TsSKB-Progress company, which manufactures Soyuz space rockets and Soyuz-TM escape vehicles, is located in Samara.

Alexander Pikayev of the Moscow Carnegie Center, speaking Thursday in a telephone interview, said it was all but impossible to know whether Western secret services have become more active because <Russia lacks effective civilian control over its secret services.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=224686

- Article 39

RUSSIA-FSS-RESULTS. More than 30 foreign spies unmasked in Russia> in 2000.

Author: By Boris Kipkeyev

MOSCOW, December 27 (Itar-Tass) - Agents of the Federal Security Service have cut short in 2000 "the spying activities and other illegal actions" of more than thirty foreign secret agents. Most of them were expelled from <Russia>, Itar-Tass was told at the Public Relations Centre of the Federal Security Service on Wednesday.

The resident agents of the embassies of several Middle East countries have lost many of their valuable informers. Moreover, the Russian counter-intelligence has kept under surveillance about four hundred foreign secret agents in 2000. The spying and other subversive activities of eleven of them were cut short, officials of the Public Relations Centre disclosed.

New information was obtained in the outgoing year on the use of informational technologies by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States in its <espionage> and subversive work against <Russia. Its attempts to get into the local computer systems of the Federal Security Service were reduced to nought, the officials noted.

More than seven hundred phone calls from Russian citizens were received by the Federal Security Service in 2000 and several dozens of them were directly linked with its counter-intelligence work.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2885400

- Article 40

Two Russians charged with treason, <espionage> in Maritime Territory

Author:

MOSCOW, April 18 (Itar-Tass) - Agents of the regional FSB national security service in an operation carried out jointly with military counterintelligence have arrested two Russian citizens charged with high treason and <espionage>.

FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev earlier said, "the counterintelligence will ensure a tougher protection of state secrets." He did not disclose details of the operation saying only that "the cases were instituted on the information from the Maritime Territorial FSB Department."

"This fact proves our conclusions about serious activation of foreign intelligence services in search for Russian secrets," said the director.

The Maritime Territorial FSB Department said the two people charged with

<espionage were in custody. The sourece refused to provide any other details.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=4870781

- Article 41

FSB May Slap Spy Charges On Tobin

Author: By Ana Uzelac Staff Writer

John Tobin, the American Fulbright scholar convicted of using marijuana, could face espionage> charges based on testimony by a new witness who accuses Tobin of trying to recruit him to be a U.S. spy, the Federal Security Service said Tuesday.

A former U.S. colleague of the witness, Dmitry Kuznetsov, painted him Tuesday as a liar and a thief.

Pavel Bolshunov, spokesman for the FSB branch in Voronezh, said Tuesday that the FSB was undecided about bringing <espionage> charges against Tobin, 24, but was reviewing allegations by Kuznetsov that he was questioned by Tobin three years ago while awaiting trial on embezzlement charges in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In interviews published Tuesday by Interfax and the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Kuznetsov said Tobin offered him favors in exchange for cooperation with the FBI. He also told MK that Tobin interrogated him at length about his friendships with several American professors.

Kuznetsov said that he was in prison on charges of embezzling grant funds from a Connecticut university.

He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Bridgeport Correction Center spokesman Brian Garnett said by telephone Tuesday that the prison had no record of ever holding a suspect named Dmitry Kuznetsov.

However, Sidney Weinstein and Ted Sarafian, whom Kuznetsov named in his interview with MK, recalled knowing the Russian, and Weinstein called him a crook.

Weinstein said he knew of several instances in which Kuznetsov was involved in unethical scientific research, including cases when he published articles based on fictitious data and quoted fictional scientific journals.

"[He] fell from being a promising scientist to becoming a competent crook," Weinstein said by telephone from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

He said Kuznetsov stayed at his home for a while in the late 1980s and left suddenly without returning $36,000 that he had loaned the Russian.

"I would have strong doubts about anything that Kuznetsov has to say on any subject," Weinstein said. "The man is a liar and a sociopath."

Sarafian, a scientist and professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, said

he knew Kuznetsov as a scientist interested in toxicology who had attained "adequate" results in his research.

"I remember he approached me in the mid-'80s with the results of his research in mercury toxicity which were strikingly similar to mine," Sarafian said by telephone from Los Angeles. "Actually, the introduction to his work had some sentences which were identical to ones I wrote a bit earlier in one of my papers, but I hadn't given it much though at the time."

The Voronezh FSB spokesman said there were no immediate plans to file <espionage> charges against Tobin because interrogating or trying to recruit a prisoner in the United States is not a Russian offense. "But it does confirm that the FSB was on the right track in suspecting Tobin of working for the U.S. intelligence," he said. "We have not stained his reputation by accusing him of being a spy in training."

Tobin has repeatedly denied accusations that he has ties to U.S. intelligence. He was detained in Voronezh in late January while studying at a university and charged a few days later with possession and use of marijuana.

At the time, the FSB also accused him of being a spy in training, pointing to his studies at a U.S. military school and the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, California.

However, no <espionage> charges were brought against Tobin.

A Voronezh court found him guilty on the marijuana charges in April and sentenced him to 36 months in prison. The sentence was later cut on appeal to one year.

Tobin's resume, however, confirms another FSB allegation that he is a trained interrogator, said Jim Maloney, a U.S. congressman from Tobin's home state of Connecticut who traveled to <Russia> with Tobin's father several weeks ago to appeal the verdict on marijuana charges.

"John Tobin was a U.S. military reservist, and Russian authorities knew that from the start," Maloney said by telephone from Washington. "Whatever he did as a member of the U.S. military on American territory is irrelevant to his stay in <Russia and his case."

John Tobin, in an e-mail to his colleagues from the Fulbright scholarship program, said the marijuana charges were a frame-up by the Voronezh FSB because he refused an offer from the Russian authorities to work for them in an unspecified role.

Kuznetsov told the Russian press that Tobin identified himself under a false name and offered to improve his prison conditions in return for his cooperation.

Kuznetsov said he agreed to review scientific material on toxicology for $100 per article but refused to cooperate further. He said he was released six months later after paying a $2,500 fine and promising to deliver 150 hours of free lectures to various U.S. universities.

Kuznetsov said he recognized Tobin on television and later traveled to Voronezh to confirm that the U.S. student was the same person who had interrogated him.

"Although he pretended that he was seeing me for the first time, I immediately recognized that he was the FBI agent who tried to force me to cooperate in prison,"

Kuznetsov said. "He has a special, characteristic smile."

Maloney, the U.S. congressman, said he was "very disappointed in the FSB statements" and that they were "inflammatory and counter-productive."

Tobin's lawyer Maxim Bayev dismissed the accusations as irrelevant and suggested that they were an attempt to prevent a weak case against his client from falling apart at a second appeal hearing expected within two weeks.

"The question of whether the charges against Tobin were legal and whether his sentence was well-founded is coming up for debate again, and somebody obviously would hate to see the case fall to pieces," he said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Tobin was transferred over the weekend to the Rossosh prison in the Voronezh region to serve out the remaining seven months of his sentence. There, the FSB spokesman said, Tobin is "learning to become a carpenter."permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=232154

- Article 42

FSB issues official charges to Berezovsky over Guardian interview

MOSCOW, July 2 (Itar-Tass) -Russia's Federal Security Service /FSB/ has issued official charges to exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, his lawyer Andrei Borovkov told Itar-Tass.

A criminal case over the oligarch's interview with The Guardian newspaper was instituted April 13, 2007, under Article 278 of the Russian Criminal Code specifying punishment for "a forcible seizure of power."

Berezovsky said in the interview, among other things, that it was necessary to use force for changing the regime in Russia>. No change is possible otherwise, he claimed.

When the reporters asked him if this was to be understood in the sense that he was preparing a revolution, Berezovsky said this was absolutely correct.

Borovkov said that the case was joined to offense proceedings under other cases related to Berezovsky's publications in foreign and Russian mass media.

"The Prosecutor General's Office has not notified yet on Berezovsky's status in the case over <espionage that was opened in connection with a statement made by businessman Andrei Lugovoi," he said.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=12228862

- Article 43

RUSSIA-LATVIA-SPYING

Spy investigation against Latvian continues.

By Boris Vlasov

PSKOV, June 3 (Itar-Tass) -- During an investigation into the spy case against Latvian citizen Peteris Ausyukas new details have surfaced. The Latvian citizen was detained at the Shumilkino checkpoint on the Russo-Latvian border when he attempted to smuggle 48 topographical maps showing the disposition of Russia>'s air defence systems across the border.

The Pskov regional FSB department reported that the charts confiscated from the Latvian spy were marked " Secret", "For Personnel Only" and "General Staff." The charts map out the entire territory in the northwest of <Russia>, including the Pskov, Tver, Vologda, Yaroslavl regions, and some areas in Belarus and in the Moscow region. The charts confiscated from Ausyukas are being examined by FSB experts who are to find out where the maps came from.

Recently, the secret services of Latvia and Estonia have stepped up reconnaissance activities in <Russia> and in particular, in the border area in the Pskov region,

A similar spy incident occurred not long ago when two men, identified as Kesk and Nikonov, were detained when they attempted to illegally take out of <Russia> 40,000 secret maps Hidden in their truck. Both have been indicted on spy charges and sentenced to different terms of imprisonment.

In a separate incident last year, Estonian citizen Villy Sonn was expelled from <Russia> for <espionage. The same happened to his compatriot Pyotr Kolpachev who had collected secret information about the combat potential of the 76th Airborne Division stationed in the Pskov region.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2990577

- Article 44

FSB: U.S. Tried to Recruit Hacker

Author: By Simon Saradzhyan Staff Writer

The Federal Security Service said Tuesday that intelligence officers at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow tried to recruit a young Russian hacker to try to break into its computer network.

While declining to provide details, an FSB officer confirmed a report by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper Tuesday that said the 20-year-old hacker was offered $10,000 to hack into the FSB network in January, but he changed his mind after a sleepless night and turned himself in.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the allegation.

The alleged recruitment attempt comes as Russia> and the United States are embroiled in a spying scandal that kicked off in February when the FBI charged veteran agent Robert Philip Hanssen with spying for <Russia>. Then in March, the

United States threatened to expel 50 Russian diplomats for <espionage>. <Russia> said it would respond in kind.

Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that two officers in the U.S. Embassy's security service - Bartle Burks Gorman and John Fowler Conners - and two FBI agents - Harry Allen Dixon and Michael Pishchimuka - tried to recruit the student, who was identified only as Vers. MK published the Americans' names in Russian, and their spelling in English could not immediately be confirmed.

MK said Vers met the four Americans through retired U.S. Air Force Colonel William Smith in North America whom he met on the Internet a year and a half ago. Coincidentally, a man named William Smith also works in the U.S. Embassy's Defense Threat Reduction Office, MK reported.

Vers boasted in e-mail exchanges with Smith that he had tried to hack sites such as those belonging to the FBI and IBM. Then after the new year, Vers told Smith he needed cash and wanted to travel to the United States to make use of his hacking skills.

Smith replied that Vers should contact an official at the U.S. Embassy who would tell him what to do. Vers and embassy officials met three times between Jan. 16 and 23. The Americans then offered Vers "a secret cooperation in the interests of American secret services against the Russian Federation," MK quoted the hacker's confession to the FSB as saying.

Two days later, Vers got a message on his cellphone to hack the FSB's network within two weeks and retrieve and delete a list of unnamed files. He was also asked to recruit other hackers to attack the FSB's network, MK said.

The Americans offered $10,000 for his assistance.

Vers spent a sleepless night after getting the instructions and went the next day to the FSB headquarters to confess.

MK said the FSB released Vers after debriefing him because the law doesn't require that charges be brought against those who confess to conspiracy of <espionage before getting caught.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=231193

- Article 45

Military court to former Rssn security officer's case July 5

Author:

MOSCOW, June 21 (Itar-Tass) - Court of the Moscow Military District is due to begin trial of the former Russian security officer, Igor Vyalkov, July 5.

The man is accused of high treason and espionage> for a western country.

Valery Komissarov, the press secretary of the court, said the data had been named during preliminary hearings, held behind closed doors.

The defendant refrained from demanding trial by a jury panel and will be tried by a single judge, Yevgeny Zubov, who earlier heard the criminal case of the Russian Army officers, charged with killing a reporter of a Moscow-based popular daily ten years ago.

Investigators say Vyalkov's crime goes back to 2002, when he leaked confidential data to a western secret service for a fee. He was an officer at a branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) at the time.

While handing over the data, Vyalkov illegally crossed <Russia's border several times.

He was detained at the end of 2002 while handing data to the secret service's agents and placed to the Lefortovo custody center of the FSB.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=6392835

-Article 46

RF authorities have no claims against NGOs involved in spy scandal

Author: Viktoria Sokolova

MOSCOW, February 9 (Itar-Tass) - Russian authorities have no claims against non-governmental organizations involved in the latest <espionage row, the chairwoman of the presidential council for promoting civil society and human rights institutions said on Thursday.

Ella Pamfilova pointed out that the Constitutional Council that is now being created within the framework of the Citizens' G8 project includes NGOs that indirectly suffered from this row.

"It was announced at the Foreign Ministry's meeting that the Russian authorities have no claims to make," Pamfilova said.

Last month the FSB security service accused four British diplomats of spying and said that one of them had brought funds for non-governmental organizations, including the country's most prominent human rights group, the Moscow Helsinki Group.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=9000706

- Article 47

Ten high-ranking officials detained in Kyrgyzstan for <espionage>

Author: Vadim Neshkumai

BISHKEK, July 2 (Itar-Tass) - Ten high-ranking officials have been detained on suspicion of <espionage, sources at the press service of Kyrgyzstan's National Security Service told Tass on Friday.

The press service officials said the detainees, whose names are not made public in the interests of investigation, were employees of the country's government office and the presidential administration.

According to unconfirmed data, the detainees worked in favour of radical and extremist groupings.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=6442471

- Article 48

International Affairs. Espionage. COLONEL IN HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE

Author: Yury Senatorov

(By Yury Senatorov. Kommersant, Aug. 10, 2006, pp. 1, 4. Condensed text:) The Moscow District Military Court passed sentence yesterday on retired GRU [Chief Intelligence Administration] Col. Sergei Skripal...

The Moscow military court heard the case of Sergei Skripal, 55, behind closed doors. Reporters were allowed in only to hear the verdict.

The judge read out his decision at a fast clip: "Sergei Skripal is found guilty of treason in the form of divulging state secrets to representatives of foreign intelligence services and engaging in espionage>. In accordance with Art. 48 of the Criminal Code, Skripal is stripped of his military rank of colonel and of all state awards." The judge then sentenced the former GRU colonel to 13 years in a strict-regime penal colony.

Skripal... remained calm as the verdict was read. His defense attorneys intend to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court's military collegium in the near future.

Considering the gravity of the crime, Russian Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky, who argued the state's case at the trial (the state was initially represented by his predecessor, the recently dismissed Aleksandr Savenkov), had demanded that Sergei Skripal be given 15 years. But the court, in view of the defendant's having cooperated with investigators and his numerous physical ailments, gave him two years less than that. It should be noted that Art. 275 of the Criminal Code ("Treason"), under which the former military officer was convicted, provides for incarceration for up to 20 years.

Sergei Skripal was detained in December 2004 near his home on Osenny Boulevard shortly after returning from Great Britain. Officers of the Federal Security Service [FSB] had by then ascertained that he was the person responsible for disclosures of classified information. But in order to be 100% certain, Mr. Skripal, who had gone into business after being discharged into the reserves in 1999, was put under surveillance. The surveillance confirmed that Mr. Skripal was repeatedly meeting with British

diplomats accredited in Moscow, and also with members of the Secret Intelligence Service in Great Britain itself.

According to the FSB's public relations center, Mr. Skripal came clean shortly after his arrest, testifying that he had been recruited by British intelligence agencies back in 1995, when he was a military intelligence officer, and had provided them with information about GRU agents operating in European countries. The agents were subsequently expelled from those countries. The FSB says that Mr. Skripal may have done as much damage to Russian intelligence as GRU officer Oleg Penkovsky did to Soviet intelligence. Penkovsky also worked for British intelligence, revealing the identities of Soviet agents in Great Britain and the US.

According to Russian intelligence, Mr. Skripal continued to work for British intelligence even after he was discharged from the Armed Forces, gathering information through colleagues working on the General Staff. "Through his actions, the spy caused considerable damage to <Russia's defense capability and state security," the FSB stressed.

During the investigation, which lasted from December 2004 to late June 2006, accused spy Skripal testified that "every time I met with members of British intelligence, they paid me a fee in hard currency for the information I provided." In addition, the former officer had a Spanish bank account into which money was deposited every month. The Moscow military court and the FSB told Kommersant that Mr. Skripal had received a total of just over $100,000 during the nine years he worked for foreign intelligence...

A Kommersant source in the intelligence community said that investigators had managed to persuade Mr. Skripal to cooperate with them and had obtained "extensive information" about the former colonel's contacts and connections. At the same time, the FSB stressed that Sergei Skripal had had nothing to do with the recent scandal involving the "spy rock" (a data-storage device) from which employees of the British Embassy in Moscow uploaded information placed in the "rock" by an unidentified agent [see Current Digest, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp. 1-4]. Skripal was already in custody when that agent was unmasked...

In London last week, an interagency delegation led by Deputy Prosecutor General Aleksandr Zvyagintsev discussed matters relating to the extradition of former Yukos employees, as well as political émigré Boris Berezovsky and Ichkerian [Chechen separatist] envoy Akhmed Zakayev. But despite the fact that the delegates were received at the highest level - for example, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith met with them - they have returned to Moscow virtually empty-handed. The British authorities told the delegation once again that extradition issues are the prerogative of the courts, and that they will not interfere with that prerogative. In the end, the trip, which had been announced with great fanfare by the Prosecutor General's Office, was modestly described as a "working visit," and the PGO revealed nothing about its outcome. So it can be assumed that the latest spy scandal will only exacerbate relations between Moscow and London...permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=10163989

- Article 49

FSB unmasks 22 foreign security officers, 71 spies in 2007

MOSCOW, December 19 (Itar-Tass) - Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Nikolai Patrushev noted that "foreign secret services showed higher activity against Russia>, first of all, the secret services in the Baltic states" in 2007.

"Foreign intelligence services are keenly interested in the information about the political and socio-economic situation in <Russia>, the measures the Russian leadership is taking to strengthen the statehood, territorial integrity and economy, the protection of national interests on the international scene, particularly <Russia>'s reaction to the development of events in the CIS states," Nikolai Patrushev said. "They showed great interest in the election campaigns for the elections in the State Duma and the upcoming presidential elections," the FSB director said.

"Some positive results were achieved in the struggle with foreign intelligence services," Patrushev said. "In 2007 22 foreign security officers and 71 spies were unmasked. Eleven foreign security officers and spies, who were caught red handed during their unlawful activity, four foreigners involved in the activity of foreign secret services were extradited from <Russia>," Patrushev said.

"Three Russian citizens were convicted for high treason. Shabaturov, who leaked the information about the Russian military intelligence service to a foreign secret service, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Arsentyev, who passed the military sensitive information to a foreign intelligence service, was sentenced to nine years in prison. Yurenya, who also passed the military sensitive information to a foreign intelligence service, was sentenced to seven years in prison," Patrushev said.

Patrushev noted that the Kaliningrad regional court is hearing the case against an officer of the Federal Penitentiary Service department in the Kaliningrad region, Lieutenant-Colonel Khitryuk, who is accused of high treason through <espionage> for a Baltic secret service.

The criminal case was instituted under the same article against two Russian citizens, who collected and passed the classified information to the military intelligence service in a country in the Asia-Pacific region. The criminal case was instituted under the article for <espionage> after the British Secret Intelligence Service recruited Russian citizen Zharko to collect different information for its further use to the detriment of <Russia>'s foreign security.

To combat the illegal migration Russian prosecutor's offices, the law enforcement agencies and the secret services of Uzbekistan, Finland, Israel, Italy, Moldova and Ukraine "busted an international criminal group, which was involved in the trade in people and the illegal trafficking of CIS citizens via <Russia in Western Europe under forged Russian foreign travel passports," the FSB director went on to say. Seventeen members of this criminal group - six Russian citizens and 11 foreigners - were arrested during the search operation, Patrushev said.

About 7,000 controlling measures were carried out to protect the state secrets, Patrushev said. Thirty criminal cases were instituted for the secrecy violations at the facilities checked by the security service under Article 283 for the disclosure of the state secret and Article 284 for the loss of documents containing the state secret, and more than 600 cases were opened for administrative offences. Over 450 licenses issued earlier for the right to work with the information containing the state secret were suspended or revoked, Patrushev said.

He also emphasized that ten people were convicted for the disclosure of the state secret. Last October the Moscow Regional Military Court found guilty former serviceman of the military topographic department of the Russian General Staff Veselov in the disclosure of the information constituting the state secret and office abuse and was convicted.

permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=13142619

- Article 50

FSB institutes legal proceedings over Lugovoi statement (updates)

MOSCOW, June 15 (Itar-Tass) - The investigation department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), with the General Prosecutor Office's consent, has instituted legal proceedings over espionage>, as a result of checking of Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi's statement, the FSB public relations service told Itar-Tass on Friday. No names linked with the case were given.

On May 22, the British prosecutor's office accused Lugovoi of murdering Alexander Litvinenko and demanded to extradite the Russian citizen. The businessman said he was not guilty. Later, he told a press conference in Moscow that the main role in the dark story was played by British secret services and their agents - Berezovsky and Litvinenko.

Lugovoi said that British secret services attempted to recruit him to collect compromising information against the Russian president. They were also interested in information about the Federal Security Service's activities in the so-called "English direction". Lugovoi said the British intelligence service first recruited Litvinenko and then entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky who is charged in <Russia with a number of crimes.

Lugovoi asked to regard his statement as officially addressed to the Russian General Prosecutor's Office.

Former Federal Security Service officer Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning in London in November last year.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=12158318

- Article 51

Russian colonel sentenced to 8 years in prison for <espionage>

Author:

MOSCOW, November 11 (Itar-Tass) - The Moscow district military court on Monday sentenced Colonel Alexander Sypachev to eight years imprisonment in a maximum-security prison for <espionage.

"Having agreed with the arguments presented by the state prosecution, the court found Sypachev guilty of the charges filed against him", the. Main Military Prosecutor's Office told Itar-Tass.

The court also stripped Sypachev of his rank of colonel.

The trial took place at the Lefortovo pre-trial detention prison. The press was not allowed to attend. The Main Military Prosecutor's Office has declined comment.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=4501720

- Article 52

RUSSIA-SECRETSERVICES-US

Detained American in Moscow prison has no complaints: FSB.

By Boris Kipkeyev

MOSCOW, April 6 (Itar-Tass) - A U.S. consular officer has visited the American citizen detained by Russian Federal Security Service agents on spying charges earlier this week. The FSB said Americans had issued no complaints about the prison conditions or treatment of the detainee.

"The American side has no complaints either about the conditions of his keeping or the reasons for the arrest, the FSB public relations department said on Thursday. It declined to name the arrested person.

The U.S. citizen was arrested in Moscow earlier this week in a joint operation conducted by the FSB's Economic Security department and its branches in the Moscow and Novosibirsk regions.

A director of a private firm, he used to work for U.S. Intelligence. Simultaneously with the arrest of the American citizen, the FSB detained a Russian specialist in defense technologies at a Moscow organization, on suspicion of divulging state secrets.

The FSB public relations department told Itar-Tass that investigation materials show that "the foreigner has been purposefully establishing contacts with Russian scientists in Moscow, Novosibirsk and other towns for a long time," in order to collect top secret information.

During a search, FSB agents found and seized from the US citizen many documents which proved his espionage> activities in <Russia>.

"Those were technical drawings of various equipment, recordings of talks with Russian citizens about their work in the domestic defense industry, as well as receipts for money given by the American," the FSB said.

FSB officers found a large sum in foreign currency on the arrested Russian citizen.

According to the FSB, foreign secret services have not decreased their activity in <Russia. Last year, FSB agents arrested 65 professional foreign intelligence agents and 30 Russian citizens who cooperated with them.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2848869

- Article 53

Scientist Convicted of Selling Secrets

A Moscow court on Monday convicted the head of a leading rocket and space research center and sentenced him to 11 1/2 years in prison for illegally selling weapons technology to China.

The Lefortovsky District Court convicted Igor Reshetin, head of TsNIIMash-Export of the Central Research Institute for Machine Building, and three of his colleagues in the case, court spokeswoman Irina Shagalina said.

Sergei Vizir, Mikhail Ivanov and Alexander Rozhkin were given prison sentences ranging from five to 11 years, Shagalina said. She declined to give further details.

The trial is one of several opened against researchers with foreign contacts in recent years.

TsNIIMash-Export was founded in 1991 to handle foreign space contracts. It has signed and fulfilled numerous agreements with China, the United States and European countries.

Reshetin was arrested in October 2005 after an almost two-year investigation into a contract with the same Chinese company implicated in the case of Valentin Danilov, a physicist who was convicted of selling classified information on space technology to China. Danilov was sentenced to 14 years in prison for providing information that he said had been published in part in scientific magazines.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyer, Anatoly Yablokov, said he would appeal Monday's verdict, which he called "biased, illegal and unfair," Interfax reported.

Several scientists have been convicted of espionage and illegally exporting technology, including Danilov, weapons researcher Igor Sutyagin and Ufa-based physicist Oskar Kaibyshev.

The Moscow Timespermanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=13052227

- Article 54

RUSSIA-ISRAEL-TANKS

Foreign states interested in new types of Russian armour.

By Anatoly Yurkin

MOSCOW, August 13 (Itar-Tass) - Secret services of foreign states were interested in information on new types of Russian armour, including the T-90S tank. This was found out after Alexander Sakov, recruited by the Israeli foreign intelligence service to

conduct espionage> activities, was caught red-handed in Omsk.

Itar-Tass learnt at the public relations centre of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) that Sakov was a paid agent of the Nativ secret service which operated in <Russia under the cover of the immigration section of the Israeli embassy in Moscow, and collected information on questions of interest for this service.

Officers of the FSB administration for the Omsk Region laid bare the informer of the Israeli foreign intelligence at the Transmash munitions factory, manufacturing T-80U and its modifications.

Sakov had "a direct access to secrets of the Black Eagle tank, the combat vehicle of the 21st century under development". Foreign intelligence services display increased interest in its fighting qualities.

The tank was developed by Siberian tank builders under the guidance of Boris Kurakin, general designer of the Omsk transport engineering factory.

Experts believe that the Black Eagle will eclipse by 70 percent such Western-made tanks as M1A2 Abrams, Leclerc and Leopard-2 as to its manoeuvrability, fire power, armour impenetrability and protection.

Defence Ministry officials explained to Itar-Tass on Thursday that foreign specialists display no less interest in another new Russian (missile-gun) tank, the T-90S, manufactured in the Urals.

This combat vehicle of the new generation embodied in its design advanced scientific and technical solutions which make it one of the best in the world both in offensive and defensive battles.

Similar to the Black Eagle, the T-90S will be a combat vehicle of the 21st century and will be the leader on the world arms market over the next decades as to its main qualities.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=2968490

- Article 55

RUSSIA SAYS 300 SPIES CAUGHT IN LAST 4 YEARS

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti ) - The head of Russia>'s Federal Security Service told a popular weekly that the FSB had identified over 300 foreign spies over the past four years.

"More than 270 actively operating agents and 70 foreign intelligence recruits, including 35 Russians, have been exposed since 2003," Argumenty i Fakty quoted Nikolai Patrushev as saying. He said that 14 agents and 33 recruits have been caught this year alone.

Patrushev said six Russians were caught in an attempt to transfer state secrets to

foreign countries, and have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Retired Colonel Valentin Shabaturov was given a 12-year sentence this year for treason and <espionage>. The court proved he had actively cooperated with foreign intelligence for seven years, from 1999 to 2006, and revealed state secrets to them.

Igor Arsentyev, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, was sentenced to nine years in prison on the same charges in September.

Patrushev said another person is facing court proceedings, and that an investigation is underway into three other cases.

He said the United States and Britain actively used the secret services of Poland, Georgia and Baltic states against <Russia>.

"This concerns a wide spectrum - from staff composition and budget allocations to strategic guidance and organization of joint operations," Patrushev said.

He also said some Georgian secret agents use their connections with the criminal underworld for their operations, and to stage various acts of provocation.

According to Patrushev, British intelligence is particularly active against <Russia, in its attempts to influence the country's domestic political developments.permanent article address :  http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/sources/article.jsp?id=12731987