REVIEW TOPICS:
British intelligence service foil Russian plot to kill prominent Chechen in UK
Website published photo of GRU Chechen battalion ex-commander in hospital
Two Russian diplomats deprived of NATO accreditation still remain in Bruxelles
Russia’s FSB revealed criminal group supplying used spare parts to defence sector enterprises
Former KGB officer’s family in Canada to be separated after son's graduation
New book discloses true scale of damage wreaked on UK and NATO by Cold War traitor
Belarusian journalists concerned about bill that would allow KGB establish punishment for extremist materials
Ukraine’s Security Service brought criminal case on Great Famine
Tajikistan’s security services trying to secretly liquidate known warlord
British intelligence service foil Russian plot to kill
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| Akhmed Zakayev |
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prominent Chechen in UK
The British intelligence service, MI6, have uncovered a plot by a Russian hitman to assassinate the former head of Chechen Ichkeria Republic’s foreign minister Akhmed Zakayev, 53, at a London hotel, according to The Sunday Mirror.
Employees of MI6 told Zakayev he faced execution like his friend, former Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned in the UK with radioactive pollonium.
Zakayev was due to meet Russian "journalists" in the next few days. But intercepted phone calls and information from Russia revealed he was a target for the FSB, the paper writes. The planned execution was to be a bullet to the back of the head when the group met. The Sunday Mirror cited a security source, "There is a real concern that the men coming across were to carry out a hit on Mr Zakayev."
Zakayev has announced himself the ‘Prime Minster in exile’ of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Since late last year most of Zakayev’s followers have left him for separate groups or went to Chechnya to join Ramzan Kadyrov.
Website published photo of GRU Chechen battalion ex-commander in hospital
Last week, online paper Kavkaz-Center received a photo, in which the ex-commander of the
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Website published this Yamadayev's photo |
Russian military intelligence (GRU) Vostok battalion* Sulim Yamadayev is pictured in a hospital. The reports claims the picture was allegedly taken in a Dubai hospital after Sulim Yamadayev recovered after the assassination attempt.
Kavkaz Center notes that it does not possess information when and where the photo was taken. However, the website marks that the Dubai authorities have not yet issued a photo or a video of Sulim Yamadayev's body after his reported murder. Though, publication of photos or video of Yamadayev's body would have ended speculation on this topic, Kavkaz Center points out.
Sulim Yamadayev’s younger brother, Isa, keeps claiming that Sulim had been injured, but survived the attack. Recently media quoted Yamadayev’s relatives as saying that he was alive, that he had made a phone call to Gudermes and declared he was determined to declare a blood feud against Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and State Duma member Adam Delimkhanov suspected in involvement in assassination attempt against him.
* AIA has devoted a special dossier to Chechen security forces, including battalion Vostok. The battalion is a part of the 42nd motorized riflemen division and submitted to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia.
Two Russian diplomats deprived of NATO accreditation still remain in Bruxelles
Two Russian diplomats, Viktor Kochukov and Vasily Chizhov, who were deprived of NATO accreditation recently have not yet left Bruxelles, Russian NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin told news agency Interfax today.
AIA reported earlier that on April 30 it became known that the NATO has deprived two employees of the Russian Permanent representation office of their accreditation with the NATO. One of the Russian diplomats, Vasily Chizhov, a mission secretary, is the son of Moscow's ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov. The other diplomat, Viktor Kochukov, headed the political section. After elimination from the lists of diplomatic personnel accredited to Belgium the Russian diplomats lose the documents allowing them to stay in the country and should leave it in the nearest future, the official of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs marked.
In its turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry deprived of accreditation in Moscow the head of the NATO Information Office in Moscow, Dr. Isabelle Francois and Attaché of Canadian embassy also working for the NATO Information Office, Mark Opgenort.
Russia’s FSB revealed criminal group supplying used spare parts to defence sector enterprises
Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, referring to the press secretary of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Mordovia directorate Natalya Rubtsova, reports that the FSB had revealed an international criminal group engaged in supply of used spare parts to Defense Ministry enterprises in Russia.
The group consisted of former and current officers of the Russian army and citizens of Belarus. The direct acquisition and payment details were provided by couriers. According to the FSB agents, the organizer and leader of the criminal group is a 57-year-old retired Belarusian army colonel, now director of the company, registered in Mogilev region.
Russian security service claims that these people, starting from 2005, created several commercial firms in Moscow, Smolensk and Bryansk regions of Russian Federation. Stolen spare parts that needed repair were bought in warehouses on behalf of these companies and under the guise of the new were sent to Russia’s defense sector enterprises.
The Russian Defense Ministry paid for them as for the new ones. "There are nearly 20 military plants in the list of enterprises which were receiving poor quality spare parts,"according to Rubtsova. Among them there was also a factory repairing armored vehicles in St. Petersburg. The FSB investigators explained that the range of stolen items included more than 100 names, navigational devices, electronic components, etc. Subsequently, these spare parts were delivered to the troops and set on the existing military equipment, the paper notes.
Former KGB officer’s family in Canada to be separated after son's graduation
Mikhail Lennikov, a former Russian KGB officer, has been ordered deported early June after an 11-year bid to remain in Canada, although his wife Irina and his son Dmitri, 17, were granted permission to apply to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, Vancouver Province reports. Lennikov’s deportation date has been postponed until June 3, after his
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| Lennikov's family |
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son’s high school graduation ceremonies at Byrne Creek Secondary School on May 29.
The Lennikovs who live in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby have been traveling to Ottawa today in a desperate battle to fight a deportation order that will separate their family. They will join their parliament member Peter Julian, at a press conference tomorrow, where they will plead for a meeting with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Lennikov hopes to meet Kenney to present the facts as he sees them.
AIA already reported that Lennikov admitted to his role in the KGB when the family moved to Canada in 1997 and applied for permanent residency status. He has said he was forced into the agency and worked as a Japanese translator for five years before quitting in 1988. He believes if he returns to Russian he will face torture for his links to the KGB; Lennikov is considered a traitor for quitting the KGB.
Canadian immigration law prohibits spies or those who have engaged in subversive action against a democratic government from receiving status unless the applicants are approved by the public safety minister, Vancouver Province marks.
New book discloses true scale of damage wreaked on UK and NATO by Cold War traitor
Geoffrey Prime, now 71, who worked at the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the 1970s, is the subject of The Secret Sentry, written by Matthew Aid, This Is Glocestershire reports. Prime sold UK secrets to Russia while working at Cheltenham spy centre and revealed Britain and America had cracked high-grade Soviet military codes, the new book claims. The revelation led to Moscow changing its encryption methods, making the ciphers impossible to read until the end of the cold war in 1989.
GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces as required, under the guidance of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Prime first started working in signals intelligence as an RAF linguist and was based in Berlin when he decided to contact the KGB in 1968. The KGB gave Prime a crash course in encryption and taught him how to use a Minox mini-cam-era to photograph documents. His handlers, Igor and Valya, encouraged him to join GCHQ, initially as a linguist in London, and then, from March 1976, at the Cheltenham headquarters where he had access to top secret documents. He would usually pass on information in dead-letter boxes, The Times expands.
Prime, at a May 1980 meeting with his handlers in Vienna, passed on 15 rolls of film containing 500 pages of classified documents taken by a miniature camera, The Secret Sentry claims. He was jailed for 38 years for his treachery. Last year, former GCHQ director Sir David Pepper said the Prime affair had come as "a great shock" to the centre, the online paper adds.
Prime’s treachery only came to light in 1982 after he was arrested for sex attacks on young girls. His wife Rhona found his one-time code pads in his wallet and reported it to police, The Times notes.
Ukraine’s Security Service brought criminal case on Great Famine
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) initiated a criminal case on the famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, news agency UNIAN reports.
The SBU considers it was genocide which has killed millions of citizens, according to the Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentin Nalyvaychenko speaking today at a meeting with representatives of the World Congress of Ukrainians.
«Ukraine has collected enough evidence for prosecution of the Bolshevik regime for artificially created famine, which led to massive destruction of the civilian population», marked the Chairman of the SBU, UNIAN reports.
Belarusian journalists concerned about bill that would allow KGB establish punishment for extremist materials
The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) has appealed to the House of Representatives to reject an amendment to the Administrative Offenses Code that would establish punishment for the distribution of extremist materials, news agecy BelaPAN reports.
The legislation would allow “law-enforcement agencies, above all the State Security Committee (KGB), to arbitrarily declare an unlimited number of materials extremist,” the Association said in a statement that it adopted at its seventh convention held in Minsk. The BAJ expressed concern that the bill contains a “very ambiguous and vague definition” of the word “extremism.” The production and distribution of extremist materials is currently punished only under criminal laws.
The BAJ criticized the country’s extremism prevention law, saying that it restricted the freedom of expression, running counter to Belarus’ international commitments. However, it warned, the new legislation could make the situation even worse.
The Association called on the lower parliamentary house to reject the bill and introduce instead an amendment to the extremism prevention law that would define clearly extremist activities as recommended by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, BelaPAN says.
Tajikistan’s security services trying to secretly
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Tajik-Afghan border area |
liquidate known warlord
According to Moscow-based daily Kommersant, officially declared version about carrying out in the east of Tajikistan of antidrug operation Mak-2009 does not correspond to reality and it is only covering of security forces special operation. Mass media allege that under the pretext of antidrug operation the security forces have been making attempts to catch the influential warlord Abdullo Rakhimov, alias Mullo Abdullo.
Rakhimov was an influential field commander during civil war of 1992-1997. His groups supported the United Tajik opposition. Rakhimov refused to sign a peace agreement and with small group of fighters got over to neighbouring Afghanistan.
Several weeks ago Rakhimov returned to Tajikistan, his units reportedly control some eastern areas of the country. For a short time his 100-men group has tripled, Kommersant writes.
Severeal attempts to liquidate Abdullo Rakhimov have been made earlier. In September, 2000, Tajik army units managed to destroy the most part of Abdullo’s group and to detain 40 militants, including Rakhimov who was delivered to Dushanbe. What happened to him then is unclear. According to some information, he was amnestied and then left for Afghanistan.
Tajik authorities are afraid that Rakhimov can accumulate those dissatisfied with the ruling regime. Areas controlled by the warlord are cut off from telecommunications and roads are strictly observed. However, a unit of governmental troops sent for neutralization of Rakhimov’s group has been disarmed recently.
The Tajik authorities deny the fact of negotiations with Rakhimov. The special operation of Tajik security forces has begun in Rasht area on May 15 and predictably will end in December, online paper Lenta.ru marks.
At the same time, security services have indirectly confirmed reports on presence in the region of Abdullo group militants as they reported on detention on May 18 in Garme, administrative centre of Rasht area, a member of the group Muzaffar Nuriddinov, according to Lenta.ru.
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