REVIEW TOPICS:
Russia has at least 500 secret service agents in Vienna 20 years after Cold War
Retired Federal Security Service General has been shot dead, experts conclude
Federal Security Service’s agents revealed grouping of hackers in Russia’s Chelyabinsk
Head of Russia’s Karelia republic visited FSB directorate, practiced in shooting-gallery
Current Russian Foreign Intelligence Service head became KGB man back in 1973
Cadets of Federal Security Service Institute have been beaten in Moscow
Classified data available on the Internet on security forces despite growing secrecy in Russia
Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security withdraw rights to access classified information to high-ranking officials
Russia has at least 500 secret service agents in Vienna 20 years after Cold War
Agence France Press in its report on Vienna as a spy haven adds the murder of Chechen dissident Umar Israilov to a growing list of cases that look unlikely ever to be resolved. AIA reported
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| Alleged spy Felix Bloch lived in this house (American Deputy Chief of Mission residence) in Vienna at the time he was apprehended on charges of spying for Russia |
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already thaat Israilov was gunned down in broad daylight in the Austrian capital on January 23. The attempted kidnapping in October 2008 of Kazakhstan’s former intelligence chief Alnur Musayev in Vienna has also been reported.
“Austria is still a favourite place for agents. They’re frequently known to the authorities, but rarely hindered. Everything is handled courteously and diplomatically. There’s a long tradition in that,” news agency cites Siegfried Beer, director of the Austrian Centre for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (ACIPSS), at the University of Graz. According to Beer, around half of at least 17,000 diplomats based in Vienna have links to the secret services. “Embassies such as the Russian or the Chinese embassies are growing rapidly.”
Experts say the Austrian authorities turn a blind eye to foreign agents’ activity. Peter Pilz, defence expert for the opposition Green party, mentions Russia among those regimes which “enjoy a freedom to do as they please in Vienna that they would never enjoy elsewhere.” “Quite simply, the Austrian authorities don’t want to jeopardise their country’s economic interests,” the parliamentarian told AFP. He accused the Interior Ministry of trying to “cover up” the murder of Israilov, who had repeatedly asked for special police protection before he was gunned down while out grocery shopping last month.
The advent in recent years of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Austria, including around 20,000 Chechens, is providing new impetus for secret service activity, AFP marks.
In its annual report, the Interior Ministry acknowledged that “Austria will remain a field of operation for foreign services. According to some estimates, Russia has at least 500 secret service agents in Vienna, many of whom monitor Chechen exiles. Austria has admitted to working with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence service in the fight against terrorism, news agency adds.
Retired Federal Security Service General had been shot dead, experts concluded
AIA reported yesterday on the death of the retired Russian Federal Security Service General Alexander Rogachev, 46. His body was found in a vehicle at building 31, Leningradsky Avenue in St.Petersburg. The security guards of restaurant Le Parisien paid attention to the suspicious Land Cruiser car which was parked near the restaurant with working engine for longer time and called the police.
According to news agency Interfax, at initial examination of the body experts came to conclusion that Rogatchev had died from natural causes. However, already in a mortuary a 9 millimeters bullet has been taken from the victim’s head. Rogachev was a former employee of the Federal Agency of Governmental Communications.
According to some sources, since recently the retired FSB Major-General was engaged in business activity. Online paper Life.ru reported that leaving his house Alexander Rogatchev had collected some documents and told his wife that he was going to have an important appointment.
General Rogachev was the son-in-law of the governor of Russia’s Orel area Yegor Stroyev who used to be the speaker of the Federation Council of Russia(1996-2001). He had a major post in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Six years ago, Alexander Rogatchyov divorced from the daughter of the known politician, Marina, 44, herself until recently a former Russian parliament member. After divorce he married Anastassiya, 35, who last time saw her husband in the early morning on the day he died, Life.Ru notes.
Cadets of Federal Security Service Institute have been beaten in Moscow
Five cadets of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Institute have undergone to an impudent attack in Moscow, online paper Life.ru reports. Two of them, Aybek Zh., 19, and Ershigid A., 18, have been hospitalized with various injuries.
The attack has occured near to institute hostels. The cadets, natives of Kyrgyzstan, were attacked by a group of aggressive youth. During the fight attackers were beating young Kyrgyz students with sticks and baseball bats.
Classified data available on the Internet on security forces despite growing secrecy in Russia
In the times of heavy crisis Russian authorities have been more and more caring of the preservation of service and state secret, however, even in conditions of hard confidentiality much sensitive information can be simply learned from open sources, St. Petersburg-based online paper Fontanka. Ru reports. The journalists casually managed to find on the Internet a document with the list of 46 employees of an operatively-search bureau of St.Petersburg Department of Interior, whose surnames, generally, should be classified according to departmental orders and represent secret information. It is the order of St.-Petersburg administration dated September 29, 2003, No 2288- on encouragement of employees of the above named secret service.
Online paper UtroNews undelines that similar divisions are so secret that even if the mass media mention their abbreviations - OPU (nowadays OPB) or USTM (Directorate of special technical undertakings), the employees of Federal Security Service grinded on search of the enemy, instantly start to look for dangerous leakage of information, online paper writes. It appears that the order of St.-Petersburg administration is available already for several years on the worldwide web and the account budgetary part of 225,000 roubles spent in the form of premiums is meticulously underlined. At the same time there is complete data of 46 awarded external surveillance officers.
The peculiarity is that for those years when the order and the list of the awarded officers have been available on the Internet, employees of the security service of the St.Petersburg City Department of Interior repeatedly checked all those named in the list, trying to establish, for example, whether their neighbours happen to know where these officials with documents of covering actually work. The matter is that, according to departmental orders, their place of work is a confidential secret even for their relatives, UtroNews notes.
Theoretically, it is possible now to start bringing Alexander Beglov, an acting governor of St.Petersburg in 2003, to account for total disclosure of classified information. It has turned out that it was the city administration headed by Beglov that had stretched a point. By the way, Beglov is currently the deputy head of the Russian Presidential administration, online paper marks.
Secret seats of work of these services which are not known even to the operating operatives of the Criminal police and the FSB directorate is even more confidential data than the names of their employees. However, the governmental machinery is subordinated to laws and each department has its identification number as a legal person. Having obtained electronic data in the black market it is possible using that number to find out what property is, for instance, at the disposal of the St.Petersburg FSB directorate in different parts of the city, including apartments, online paper adds.
Head of Russia’s Karelia republic visited FSB
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Sergei Katanandov (R) at FSB Karelia directorate |
directorate, practiced in shooting-gallery
On the Day of Defender of Motherland in Russia, the Federal Security Service (FSB) directorate in the Republic of Karelia in the north-western part of the Russian Federation, demonstrated to the Head of the Republic, Sergei Katanandov, system of armament and trainings of its special divisions, official site of Karelia authorities, Kareliya Ofitsialnaya, reports.
The weapons shown to the Head of the Republic were no exhibition copies, oline site emphasizes. These arms already have been used at warfare and could still be used in case of necessity. A number of samples one will not meet in armament of any army of the world, including the Russian one, were demonstrated by the FSB officers, according to the website.
The Head of the Republic attended actual shooting training of the FSB Spetsnaz officers in the republican directorate’s shooting gallery. Following the demo-training of professionals Sergei Katanandov could himself practice in shooting from different types of pistols. The official website marks that the Head of the Republic has shown quite good results of shooting if it is considered that he handled many samples of the weapons for the first time.
Current Russian Foreign Intelligence Service head became KGB man back in 1973
The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the successor of legendary First Main Directorate (PGU) of the KGB of the USSR, is one of the key departments responsible for maintenance of state security of the Russian Federation, online paper The Moscow Post writes. On the Day of Defender of Motherland in Russia, it looked back to some details of its director’s biography.
Mikhail Fradkov, the current SVR head, graduated from the All-Union Aacademy of Foreign Trade in 1981. Since 1975 he worked on various supervising positions in the system of foreign economic relations of the USSR. He worked in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade in the 1990s. In 1992, he became deputy minister; in 1993, the first deputy minister; in 1997, he got the minister’s job.
It was spoken that Fradkov had even kept for the country the notorious ‘gold of the Comunist Party’ that became the core of the Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation. In 1999, Fradkov began to supervise over all trade system of the Russian Federation as a Minister of Trade. Then, in 2001, he incured the management of the Federal Service of Tax Police of the Russian Federation. Only in 2002, Fradkov’s subordinates revealed 24,000 tax crimes, The Moscow Post points out.
In 2004, President Putin appointed Fradkov the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. His main contribution in this post, became creation of the Stabilization Fund which has allowed Russia to successfully struggle against consequences of the world financial crisis, The Moscow Post marks. Fradkov was an opponent of "squandering" of means of the fund, having warned that in the further it inevitably would lead to financial trouble for Russia.
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| Mikhail Fradkov |
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Then, on September 12, 2007, Fradkov left the Prime Minister’s post to head the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. Fradkov reportedly became an employee of the KGB still in 1973, shortly before his business trip to India where he spent three years (1973-75). Already then rumours were circulating that he was closely connected with the intelligence, however, they were not formally acknowledged.
Mikhail Fradkov has been officially awarded high enough security services’ awards. He has been awarded a sign of the Honourable Employee of Russia’s Counterintelligence. This sign was presented to him in the mid-1990s by the Director of the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) Sergei Stepashin, «for strengthening of communications between Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and the Federal Counterintelligence Service». The sign was established in 1994 and is considered in the FSB (FSK, up to 1995) the highest departmental award after the sign For Service in Counterintelligence of 1st Degree and analogue Soviet award of the Honourable Employee of State Security. In 1994-2004 this award was presented to less than a thousand of persons. According to its charter, this sign is awarded «for special merits in operative and service activity and shown initiative and persistence». Fradkov is also a winner of the Yuri Andropov prize for an outstanding contribution to the security of the Russian Federation.
Federal Security Service’s agents revealed grouping of hackers in Russia’s Chelyabinsk
In Russian city of Chelyabinsk Federal Security Service’s agents revealed and detained members of a criminal group which distributed computer viruses for monetary compensation. For optimization of criminal activity on the Internet network the malefactors created an information resource and advertised their services, daily Vecherny Chelyabinsk reports.
The criminals unpunishedly operated for two years. As a result of activity of the created and modified nocuous programs millions of units of password and coded information have been stolen, thousands of innocent users of personal computers have suffered losses, according to the paper.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) Chelyabinsk area directorate told the press that the participants of the criminal group were recognized guilty of fulfilment of crime and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment conditionally and to penalties by the Kalinin district court of Chelyabinsk. The FSB regional firectorate stressed that one of the primary goals of the FSB is revealing of threats in cyberspace and the persons, engaged in illegal activity in IT sphere, Vecheny Chelyabinsk adds.
Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security withdraw rights to access classified information to high-ranking officials
In a report titled, State Agency for National Security (SANS) Leads 1-0? Sofia-based daily Sega comments on the recent withdrawal of the rights to access classified information of former National Revenue Agency head Maria Mourgina and of a senior Bulgaria’s Defence Ministry official, Stoyan Stoyanov, Deputy Director of the ministry's Social Activities Executive Agency.
The daily newspaper says this is only the first step undertaken by SANS, according to cautious optimists. Next, it should make the prosecuting magistracy act quicker. Also, SANS should continue to work since at this stage the part visible to the public is just formal withdrawal of permits while the operational capabilities of the Agency are huge.
High hopes are pinned on it to provide the much coveted boost in counteracting corruption, says Sega.
SANS spokesperson Zoya Dimitrova is quoted by newspaper Zemya as saying that Stoyanov is the target of pre-trial proceedings which have prompted the revocation of his clearance to handle classified information. It means that he is no longer in a position to perform his official duties and will therefore be dismisssed.
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