REVIEW TOPICS:
Former FSB officer: Litvinenko’s murder was ordered by Russian First Vice Premier.
CIA secret study on Stalin’s death: imposssible to determine whether dictator was murdered.
Russian spy suspect gets home after short-term arrest in Austria.
Russian FSB checking citizen who claims was recruited by British MI6.
State Security Committee, police officers arrested for bribes in Belarus.
Kyrgyzstan reportedly charges alleged spy lady with treason.
UPN opens communist secret service archives to public access in Slovakia.
Former FSB officer: Litvinenko’s murder was ordered by Russian First Vice Premier
The former Russian state security service officer Evgenie Lymarev, living in France now, told in a media interview about his version of murder in London of the ex-intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko
In his opinion, those were the syloviki, representatives of security forces and higher military establishment, who were involved in his murder, and the ‘political customer’ of it was the First Vice-Premier of the Russian government and possible successor of the current Russian President, Sergei Ivanov.
„The truth about Litvinenko’s poisoning will not be found out at the present regime in Russia and under any of its successors", Lymarev told the magazine Kommersant-Vlastj.
He said it was "very strange” that the British authorities, having indicted Andrei Lugovoy , had excluded any mentioning about polonium-210. At the official level it has never been voiced that Litvinenko was
poisoned by the Russian polonium which could be produced and distributed only by a special state agency. Lymarev considers that, probably, British were trying to reduce this case to an ordinary crime, being afraid of its politization.
Lymarev said he personally was convinced that nobody from the higher statesmen officially gave the order on Litvinenko’s liquidation, „nobody signed such an order”. The crime was organized and carried out at a clan level as, for instance, was done also in case of similar poisoning of journalist Yury Schekochikhin and with murder of Anna Politkovskaya, marked the ex-agent. He stressed that most probable political customer of Litvinenko’s liquidation might have been Sergei Ivanov, organizers - one of the most powerful clans of the FSB and SVR, Foreign Intelligence Service, and the executors were former Spetsnaz members to give no reason blaming the Russian state for the killing .
„The organizers had counted at least two variants: if polonium would not be found out, painful death of Litvinenko, the same as the dreadful death of Shchekhochikhin, would frighten those whom it was necessary, - and if polonium would be found, even more people would be frightened, having understood that only state structures have access to polonium", said Lymarev.
The ex-security service officer names Litvinenko’s liquidation a multi-purpose special action of professionals, and one of its purposes was finally to compromise the self-exiled tycoon and Russian regime critic Boris Berezovsky, first of all in the West.
„Now Lugovoy declares that Sasha [Litvinenko] and his English "colleagues" allegedly tried to involve him in some dirty business, first offering and then even forcing him to work for them with an ultimate goal to recruit him. This version looks extremely doubtful, as for me it is clear, that it was Lugovoy with his shadow partners from Russia who searched for approaches to Sasha", concludes Lymarev.
Russian who saw poisoned Litvinenko in London says he himself is still alive
Vyacheslav Sokolenko, who currently heads a security firm, with a sense of humor reacted to remrks of Boris Berezovsky that he already is not alive, news agency ITAR-TASS reports today. Sokolenko met with journalists in Moscow today and announced he was alive, was well and everything was ok with his health.
Sokolenko also told the press that he recently had come back from Samara where he watched a football game between the Army Sports Club (TsKA) and Krylya Sovetov teams. He said he invited Berezovsky to the next matches of his favourite club, the TsSKA, for instance, to forthcoming in September and October games of Russian and British teams in London and in Moscow.
He also told that he never in his life worked in the Foreign Intelligence Service or the FSB of Russia, and regarded Berezovsky's statements regarding his career " a fruit of his sick imagination".
According to ITAR-TASS, earlier today Boris Berezovsky had announced to a number of mass media outlets that Vyacheslav Sokolenko, one of figures mentioned in the poisoning case of the former Russian FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is no more alive.
Sokolenko denied earlier ever meeting Litvinenko and told the press he was in London with the crime suspects Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, but only to watch the football match between TsKA Moscow and Arsenal. He said Lugovoy and Kovtun met Litvinenko, but he was not present, adding he never knew the poisoned ex-agent. Sokolenko denied claims that he was the "third man" at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel meeting on 1 November, 2006 in London after which Litvinenko fall fatally ill. However, he admitted that he had been staying at the hotel at the time. Sokolenko later said he had gone to the hotel where Lugovoy and Kovtun had their meeting with Litvinenko on 1 November and only fleetingly greeted Litvinenko. "I didn't have a meeting with him, we just exchanged greetings, but frankly speaking, at that moment I didn't even think it was Litvinenko, " Sokolenko told the BBC.
Russian FSB checking citizen’s claim he was recruited by British MI6 - Patrushev
Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev has confirmed that a Russian citizen has claimed he was recruited by Britain's secret intelligence service MI6, news agency Interfax reports. "Our investigation department is busy dealing with this. A criminal case is likely to be opened soon," Patrushev told the press today in Kaliningrad, where he had arrived to chair a meting of the Russian National Counter-Terrorism Committee.
Russia's security service said today it was questioning a Russian national who approached it claiming he had been recruited by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, news agency RIA Novosti reported. "The citizen, whose name cannot be revealed, said Britain's MI6 recruited him," the agency cites press service of the Federal Security Service. According to the FSB spokesperson the Russian national disclosed the names of British secret agents and revealed secret addresses in Europe that MI6 agents had given him, as well as the tasks he had been set. The press service said the person cited fear for his life as the reason he had approached the FSB. The secret service representative told the press that it was the press conference by the businessman Andrei Lugovoy and the subsequent demands on him by MI6 agents for an immediate meeting in one of the European cities that prompted the citizen to turn to the FSB. The FSB press service also quoted the person as saying that fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who is wanted by Russia on charges of fraud and attempts to overthrow the government, had repeatedly proposed that they meet in Israel and pressed for his meeting with British agents. "FSB is carefully confirming the information," the spokesperson said.
Russian spy suspect gets home after short-term arrest in Austria
Vladimir Vozhzhov, the 51-year-old official of the Roskosmos space agency of Russia, arrested two weeks ago by Austrian police on spy charges, is back in Russia, The St.Petersburg Times reported, referring to the Russian Embassy in Vienna.
“Russian citizen Vladimir Vozhzhov flew out to Moscow and is now located in the motherland,” embassy spokeswoman Tatyana Kupalova was cited by the Interfax news agency.
Vozhzhov, a senior official at the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), will soon resume his duties, space agency spokesman Igor Panarin said, according to online paper Gazeta.ru.
Vozhzhov was arrested June 11 in Salzburg, Austria. Austrian media reported that he offered 20,000 euros ($26,600) to an Austrian military helicopter technician for classified information, possibly from German-based Eurocopter. He was freed June 21 after the United Nations informed Austria that he had diplomatic immunity because he had been in the country for a UN conference.
Austrian Foreign Ministry, confirming the Russian detained for spying had diplomatic immunity, said still last week they planned to request Russia strip him of his status, news agency RIA Novosti reported. Russian authorities rejected to strip Vozhzhov of his diplomatic status, despite of the gravity of the charges laid against him.
The Russian citizen person also faced deportation to Germany, that was connected with the fact that Vozhzhov was suspected of spying activities in the territory of Germany, too.
CIA secret study on Stalin’s death: imposssible to determine whether dictator was murdered
The US Central Intelligence Agency has declassified its report on death of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, news agency The Asociated Press reports. The study noted that information under the system Stalin had created was so tightly controlled that no one knew for sure the details of his death. The CIA commentary, stamped "top secret," was completed about four months after Stalin's death, news agency notes.
According to the study, it was „impossible to determine whether Stalin had been dead for some time, whether he was murdered, or whether he died in the way the medical bulletins said he did." He was reported to have died about three days after suffering a stroke and was succeeded by Georgy Malenkov, a party leader and close collaborator of Stalin's.
The analysis was contained in a large group of documents, some of which were released by the CIA last week, according to the news agency. They covered the period from 1953-73 and were prepared by specialists in the communist world. Newly released CIA documents also show that the Soviet leadership undertook a hasty shakeup of top government and Communist Party posts following the death of Josef Stalin in March 1953 to head off possible "panic and disarray" among the country's long-repressed population and to show the people and the rest of the world that the Soviet house was in order, The Asociated Press adds.
Kyrgyzstan reportedly charges alleged spy lady with treason
A female employee of the Kyrgyz parliament's press service has reportedly been charged with treason, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Kyrgyz Service reported. The National Security Committee declined to comment on the media reports.
AIA already reported that Dzhypargul Arykova was detained in Bishkek on June 19 as she was allegedly passing classified materials to a Chinese national, who has reportedly been indicted with espionage.
Reports say the two accused face from 12 to 20 years in prison, according to news agency 24.kg.
Kyrgyz human rights campaigners have expressed concerns on the charges against Arykova. Toleikan Ismailova of the Civil Society Against Corruption told RFE/RL that her nongovernmental organization is looking for a lawyer to represent Arykova.
The charges, if officially confirmed, would be a blow for Kyrgyz-Chinese relations on the eve of the August Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to be held in Bishkek, some lawmakers said.
State Security Committee, police officers arrested for bribes in Belarus
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Belarus investigates a criminal case against three colonels of the KGB (State Security Committee) and the Interior Affairs Ministry, news agency BelaPAN informs, referring to Prosecutor General Pyotr Miklashevich’s statement at a press-conference in Minsk.
Miklashevich has said that the criminal action on charges relating Article 430 Part 3 (major bribetaking) had been initiated by General Prosecutor’s Office on May 31 against two KGB colonels and one colonel of the Interior Affairs Ministry. The three are arrested, their names not disclosed, news agency adds.
Associated Press marks that officials say those are the latest figures to be targeted in a widening corruption investigation into the petroleum industry. Miklashevich told reporters that the arrests were connected with the arrest last month of Alexander Borovsky, a top executive with state-owned petrochemical company Belneftekhim, the agency marks. Prosecutor General said Borovsky had been charged with embezzlement, abuse of authority and spreading state secrets, however refused to identify the officers of the Belarussian KGB or the Interior Ministry or say how much they had allegedly received. Miklashevich only mentioned that the damages total in millions of dollars, agencies say.
UPN opens communist secret service archives to public access in Slovakia
3 The National Memory Institute (UPN) of Slovakia has posted on its website a list of the files about collaborators with the Communist-era secret service (StB), weekly The Slovak Spectator reports.
Anyone who wishes to see the files related to their name can use the website to request a viewing. The UPN will send a reply within two days and notify a person when the documents are ready, the paper notes.
The documents can only be read in one of the institute’s study rooms, The Slovak Spectator expands. Viewing anything related to foreign intelligence service requires the approval of the chairman of the UPN board of directors. The website also contains the name of nearly 3,000 additional StB officers whose files have yet to be delivered by the Interior Department, the paper adds. The National Memory Institute was established in 2002 to collect and archive files related to country’s communist and fascist eras.
Previous review
List of daily reviews
Main Page | News Page | 007 News | Print
|
