Comment: Russian Espionage Steals 2010 Limelight

GRU emblem

GRU emblem

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As the first decade of the 21st century is coming to an end, few would dispute that Israeli and American spy agencies have been among the most talked-about intelligence organizations of 2010. The reasons for this are equally undeniable: the United States tops the list because of its political prominence, which inevitably attracts media attention; Israel tops it because of the sheer ferocity of its espionage output throughout the Middle East. And yet there is nothing new about this, since neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Mossad are exactly novices when it comes to high-profile media exposures. The same cannot be said with respect to Russian intelligence agencies, which went through a period of prolonged hibernation following the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the year that is about to end demonstrates that the stagnant interlude in Russian espionage may well be in its closing stages.

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News you may have missed #458

  • More arrests of alleged Russian agents in Georgia. The government of Georgia arrested six people suspected of being agents for Russia and accused them of staging a series of explosions, including one outside the US embassy in capital Tbilisi. At least 13 more people were arrested last month in Georgia, and are facing charges of spying for Moscow.
  • Iran defector says Tehran hosted N. Korean techs. Mohammad Reza Heydari, who resigned in January from his post as Iranian consul in Norway, and defected to the West, has told a conference in Paris that he saw North Korean technicians “repeatedly” travel to Iran.
  • Spy scandal MP helped second Russian woman stay in UK. British Liberal Democrat parliamentarian Mike Hancock, whose assistant, Katia Zatuliveter, is accused by MI5 of spying for Russia, helped 25-year-old Russian citizen Ekaterina Paderina stay in Britain after she ran into visa problems, in the late 1990s.

Mysterious Russian spy goes on trial in Poland

Valentin Korabelnikov

V. Korabelnikov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The trial has started in Warsaw, Poland, of an unnamed Russian citizen accused of working for Russian military intelligence. On October 22, the mysterious Russian, known only as “Tadeusz J.”, appeared before the Regional Court of Warsaw and pleaded not guilty to charges of collecting military intelligence on Poland on behalf of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). The accused has a Polish-sounding name and is fluent in Polish, but is not a Polish citizen. Instead, he lived in Poland under permanent residency status for at least decade. His legal income appears to have come from his ownership of a hunting-rifle accessories store. But he was arrested last February, after a six-month surveillance operation by Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW). He was subsequently charged of obtaining classified information on the Polish military through his patronage of elite Polish hunting clubs, whose members included several Polish military officials. Read more of this post

Russia, Romania, expel diplomats in spy tit-for-tat

Gabriel Grecu

Gabriel Grecu

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Russian and Romanian governments have expelled each other’s diplomats in a spy scandal that made headlines in both countries last week. The spy affair began last Monday, August 16, when Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the arrest of a Romanian diplomatic official, who was allegedly caught in the act of espionage. The official was later named as Gabriel Grecu, who was First Secretary of the Political Department of the Romanian embassy in Moscow. According to a laconic FSB press release, Grecu was detained while “attempting to solicit classified military information from a Russian national”. According to Russian media, the Romanian official was found “in possession of various pieces of espionage equipment”. Read more of this post

Analysis: Russian-Czech spy scandals show new direction in Russian espionage

ÚZSI seal

ÚZSI seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last July saw the resignations of three Czech Generals, including the head of the president’s military office and the country’s representative to NATO, following revelations that one of their senior staffers had a relationship with a Russian spy.  Intelligence observers have become accustomed to frequent reports of Russian-Czech spy scandals in recent years. But, according to reports from Prague, recent Russian intelligence activity in the Czech Republic may indicate a change of direction by Moscow. Some say that Russia’s new espionage doctrine focuses less on military intelligence in the post-US-missile-shield strategic environment, and more on political and economic espionage. To be sure, Russia’s intelligence presence in the Czech capital remains substantial: Czech counterintelligence sources estimate that at least 60 –that is, one in three– Russian diplomats in Prague are engaged in intelligence-related activities. But the intensity of Russian espionage in Prague is not unique. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #369

  • UN official criticizes US over drone attacks. The use of targeted killings by the CIA, with weapons like drone aircraft, poses a growing challenge to the international rule of law, according to Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings.
  • Russian spies less active during Obama administration. The Czech Republic’s Military Intelligence Service said in its annual report on Tuesday that Russian agents have reduced their activities in the country since US President Barack Obama abandoned Bush-era plans for missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.
  • Analysis: A look back at US intelligence reform. The 2004 US Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was supposed to “address institutional obstacles that had complicated the intelligence community’s struggle to adapt to new technologies and a changing national security environment”. But five years later, many of those original obstacles remain in place.

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Italy busts arms smuggling network, arrests Iranian intelligence agents

Hamid Nejad Masoumi

Masoumi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Italian authorities have announced the arrest of two Iranians and five Italians on suspicion of smuggling European-made weapons and explosives to Iran. Italian police said the Iranians involved in the operation, which breached an international embargo on Iran, are “believed to be members of the Iranian secret services”. They are Ali Damirchiloo, 55 (occupation unknown), and Hamid Nejad Masoumi, 51, an accredited journalist and Iranian state television correspondent, who has lived in Italy since 1995. Italian authorities have issued arrest warrants for two more Iranians, Hamir Bakhtiyari Reza and Bakhtiyari Homayoun, who are also believed to be intelligence agents and are thought to have managed to escape to Iran. Read more of this post

Did missing Polish intel officer defect to Russia?

Stefan Zielonka

Stefan Zielonka

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
We have been keeping an eye on the mysterious case of Stefan Zielonka, a senior SIGINT officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May of 2009. The seriousness of Zielonka’s disappearance stems from his extensive knowledge of Polish undercover intelligence networks operating overseas, including names and contacts of illegals –i.e. agents operating without diplomatic cover. Consequently, Polish intelligence officials have expressed fears that, if Zielonka defected, or was kidnapped by foreign intelligence agents, “much of the country’s intelligence network could be compromised”. The possibility that Zielonka actually defected increased after it became known that his wife and young child also disappeared. In December, a report in Poland’s Dziennik Gazeta Prawna claimed that the signals intelligence officer’s mysterious disappearance is connected with a “trail leading to the Far East”, with “all clues lead[ing] to China”. Earlier this week, however, Russian weekly Argumenti Niedieli suggested that Zielonka was in fact recruited by Russian military intelligence. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0279

  • Pakistani spy agencies drug political activists. Intelligence agencies in Pakistan are using drugs to extract information from political activists, with the cooperation of doctors on the payroll of the state, according to one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers.
  • Georgia jails alleged Russian spy. Vakhtang Maisaia, a military expert who advised Georgia’s mission to NATO, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for spying for Russia during the 2008 South Ossetia War. Last week, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, son of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first post-communist president, was formally charged with “collaborating with Russian intelligence services”.

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Georgian paramilitaries posed as election observers, say Ukrainians

Viktor Yanukovych

V. Yanukovych

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ukraine’s largest political party has accused the nearby nation of Georgia of sending to Ukraine a team of paramilitary operatives disguised as international election monitors. Vladyslav Lukianov, who represents Ukraine’s Party of Regions in the country’s parliament, has given to the press ten names of Georgian paramilitary agents who allegedly performed “law enforcement operations” in Ukraine, while supposedly monitoring last Sunday’s Ukrainian elections. It appears that three more Georgians, who were arrested on Saturday in Donetsk, reportedly did not possess identity papers or travel documentation, and are so far refusing to speak to Ukrainian security officials. To further complicate the issue, an allegedly wiretapped conversation between Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, and an unidentified woman surfaced in the Ukrainian news media last week. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0248

  • Cuba insists jailed US contractor is secret service agent. Cuban officials say that a US citizen working for Maryland-based international aid group Development Alternatives Inc., who was arrested in Havana last month, was actually recruiting local Cubans to spy on the government.
  • Analysis: Spying in Eastern Europe heats up again. The Cold War may be 20 years dead and buried, but it seems that the old East-West spying game is not only alive and kicking, but gaining vigor in places like Warsaw, Prague and Tallinn.
  • Obama designates new list of secrecy gatekeepers. The US president has designated over two dozen officials as “original classification authorities” (OCAs), who have the power to classify government information as Top Secret or Secret, and (in most cases) to delegate such authority to their subordinates. Importantly, the directive says that OCAs will lose their job if they fail to “receive training in proper classification […] at least once a calendar year”.

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Polish officials reveal arrest of alleged Russian spy

Valentin Korabelnikov

V. Korabelnikov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Polish government has announced the arrest of a Russian resident of Warsaw, on charges of spying for Russia. The man, whose identity has not been released, was apparently arrested last February or March, after a six-month surveillance operation by Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW). Polish officials did not say why the arrest was kept secret for so long, but revealed that the alleged spy’s capture was known only to Poland’s president, the prime minister and the office of the prosecutor. The alleged spy is said to be a Russian citizen and a fluent Polish speaker, who has lived in Poland under permanent residency status for at least decade. His legal income appears to have come from his ownership of a hunting-rifle accessories store. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0233

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Missing Polish intel officer probably defected to China

Stefan Zielonka

Stefan Zielonka

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
We have been keeping an eye on the mysterious case of Stefan Zielonka, a senior signals intelligence officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May. The seriousness of Zielonka’s disappearance stems from his extensive knowledge of Polish undercover intelligence networks operating overseas, including names and contacts of illegals –i.e. agents operating without diplomatic cover. Consequently, Polish intelligence officials have expressed fears that, if Zielonka defected, or was kidnapped by foreign intelligence agents, “much of the country’s intelligence network could be compromised”. Read more of this post

Lithuania’s spy chief resigns over secret CIA prison probe

Malakauskas

Malakauskas

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The director of Lithuania’s intelligence service unexpectedly resigned on Monday, reportedly in connection with a parliamentary investigation into a reputed CIA secret prison site in the country. IntelNews regulars will remember that last November ABC News cited CIA officials in alleging that the Lithuanian government provided the CIA with an unmarked building located in Lithuanian capital Vilnius, with the understanding that it would be used as a so-called black site for secretly detaining high-value al-Qaeda suspects. Lithuanian government officials denied the allegation, but promised to set up a high-level probe into the matter. But the members of the parliamentary committee that was established to examine the ABC News revelations soon found themselves shunned by Lithuanian intelligence officials. According to the committee head, Arvydas Anusauskas, the parliamentarians were offered ambiguous answers or no answers at all by Lithuanian secret service agencies. Read more of this post