REVIEW TOPICS:
Russian Navy, Federal Security Service intensifying search for lost vessel
Trial of Russian GRU Lieutenant-Colonel accused of trafficking of women to resume in two weeks
Russian Federal Security Service border guards and air units exercise in Pacific Ocean off Kamchatka
Relationship between Russian intelligence and Hezbollah has long history, may be used against Israel
Soviet Union wanted Stasi chief to help to topple Honecker of East Germany in 1987 – Berlin newspaper
Dutch-owned company accuses Ukraine's Security Service of helping corporate raiders
Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service has no information about New York Times report
Russian Navy, Federal Security Service intensifying search for lost vessel
The Naval forces and Federal Security Service of Russia continue the search of the cargo vessel the Arctic Sea with wood which disappeared two weeks ago with the all-Russian crew going through Gibraltar to Algeria. The Maltese-flagged, Finnish-chartered ship reportedly dropped off the radar shortly after passing through the English Channel on July 28. Two Russian nuclear
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| Lost Arctic Sea |
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submarines would join the search, Moscow’s Channel One television reported.
In a letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the relatives of the crew members have been asking for a full-scale search and rescue operation to begin with the use of all the necessary Russian special-task forces.
After the ship was said to have been disappeared, Swedish media reported that it had been attacked in the Baltic Sea on July 24, The Moscow Times marks. Masked men who called themselves Swedish police officers boarded the ship from a rubber boat with the word Polis (Police) painted on the side, tied up the crew and carried out a search, before leaving the ship, the reports said. Swedish police stated they hadn't been searching ships in that area.
Mikhail Voytenko, editor of Russia's Sovfracht maritime journal, told Reuters that the ship might have been carrying a secret cargo unknown to the vessel's owners or operators. “I don't think that it was pirates who took this vessel but it really smells of some sort of state involvement”. Mostly likely, the Russian crew was caught up in a mafia feud over illicit goods, he added.
The Daily Mirror cites a piracy consultant who did not want to be named because of past negotiations with Somali sea raiders who said, "The Eastern European mafia may be behind it. Drugs on board, possibly".
The editor of Russian maritime bulletin Sovfrakht has told local media he has learnt from a Defence Ministry source that a frigate has been following a ship similar to the Arctic Sea in the Atlantic Ocean near Gibraltar. But according to the ITAR-TASS news agency, the Russian navy has denied the report, saying its ships are continuing to search for the Arctic Sea vessel.
A month before the hijacking, on 24 June, the ship was repaired at the Pregol shipyard in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave located between Poland and Lithuania, and known for smuggling, the Business Week notes. Another question is why it took Interpol over a week to raise the alert.
The Swedish daily Metro said it spoke by telephone with someone who claimed to be the Arctic Sea captain on July 31 about the reported hijacking in the Baltic Sea. "They were dressed in black uniforms," the newspaper quoted the captain as saying. "They resembled American elite soldiers and seemed very professional. They said they were looking for cocaine, which should have been loaded in Kaliningrad. They spoke English, with some kind of accent." Security experts were wary of attributing the disappearance to bandits, and they also said terrorism appeared unlikely.
The known Russian security expert Pavel Felgenhauer expressed doubts on credibility of rumors that the lost vessel could be somehow connected to the smuggling of nuclear materials. More likely possibilities, he said, were insurance fraud or a commercial dispute.
Trial of Russian GRU Lieutenant-Colonel accused of trafficking of women to resume in two weeks
The trial of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Dmitry Strykanov, accused of trafficking of women, has begun today in Moscow, radio Ekho Moskvy reports.
The trial is taking place in Moscow district military court and the hearings will resume on August 26, radio says. According to the version of investigators, Strykanov and seven other Russian citizens were taking out women to European countries and the Middle East where they forced them to be engaged in prostitution. Fictitious contracts on employment abroad were concluded for registration of visas through fictional firms. 130 women have been recognized victims in the criminal case, radio adds.
Russian Federal Security Service border guards and air units exercise in Pacific Ocean off Kamchatka
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards and Federal Security Service air units have staged a series of exercises exercises in the Pacific Ocean off the Kamchatka coast, Russian news agencies are reporting, referring to a FSB spokesman.
RIA Novosti is quoting the unnamed spokesman as saying that the tactical exercise rehearsed actions to counter unlawful activities at sea, as well as search and rescue operations, and involved the Askold Pynko a patrol boat, the Oryol border escort-vessel, a helicopter carrier, and several warplanes and helicopters of the Russian Federal Security Service, news agency ITAR-TASS expands.
The border troops trained to chase ships that intrude Russian territorial waters, use aviation to stop it and to dismount FSB commando units onboard of the detained vessel with the help of helicopters. The exercise was observed by a group of visiting federal police officers from Germany. "The German guests were impressed by the high professionalism of the Russian pilots," the FSB spokesman said, adding that all the missions were successfully accomplished.
Relationship between Russian intelligence and Hezbollah has long history, may be used against Israel
The Russian intelligence service may be providing valuable information to Hezbollah about Israeli activities, prompting concern in Tel Aviv that any future military initiative against the group may not come as a surprise, WorldNet Daily reports. It notes that to date, Israel’s officials have not officially commented on reports of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)-Hezbollah cooperation. However, sources say that without the intelligence provided by the Israeli spy network in Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force would not have knocked out Hezbollah medium-range missile launchers during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prospect of cooperation between the FSB and Hezbollah has led to one unconfirmed report from the Israeli website DEBKAfile claiming that the Russian intelligence service assisted Hezbollah in uncovering an alleged Israeli spy ring in Lebanon, WorldNetDaily reminds. Called the Al-Alam spy ring, it reportedly operated primarily in southern Lebanon, leading to the arrest of some 70 people of varying national origins. In addition to Lebanese, the alleged spies also were said to be Palestinian and Egyptian citizens.
Russia's FSB may be providing intelligence based on intercepts it is acquiring from its enlarged presence in the Middle East, especially at a new base in Tartus, Syria, according to informed sources, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin says. The Syrians have allowed Russia to enlarge facilities at Tartus to increase its naval presence. Tartus is only 25 miles from Lebanon's northern border with Syria. Russia's increased presence in Syria is meant to dampen any notion to attack either Syria or Lebanon. At the same time, it has permitted the Russians to introduce sophisticated surveillance systems capable of blanketing all of Lebanon and Syria.
Russians have not commented on providing information to Hezbollah. Nevertheless, the relationship between the Russians and Hezbollah has a long history as far back as 1972.
Soviet Union wanted Stasi chief to help to topple Honecker of East Germany in 1987
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Erich Honecker |
– Berlin newspaper
The Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to topple East German leader Erich Honecker in 1987, two years before the Berlin Wall fell, daily Berliner Morgenpost reports. The government in Moscow sought out the then East German intelligence chief Markus Wolf, who had ties with the KGB, to plot the overthrow of Honecker, the paper writes.
Wolf resigned his post as the chief of Stasi foreign intelligence in February 1987, saying wanted to retire and write books.
In March 1987, Wolf met in Dresden with then-Soviet KGB deputy chief Vladimir Kryuchkov and Hans Modrow, a high-ranking East German Socialist Union Party (SED; Communist) official who was designated as the most likely successor to Honecker.
The only surviving eyewitness of the secret meeting in Dresden, Hans Modrow, confirmed the fact in an interview to the newspaper. „It was taking place on March 4, 1987 in the guest house of the SED party Dresden branch at Weissen Hirsch. Wolf and Kryuchkov were there“, Modrow marked.
At the same time Modrow, 81, says he does not remember whether there was discussion on a possible attempt of coup d’etat against Erich Honecker. Modrow recalls, however, that Kryuchkov in Dresden met also with the scientist Manfred von Ardenne who was closely connected with the USSR. His son Thomas told the Berliner Morgenpost that his father once said he had been directly asked by Kryuchkov whether he could imagine Modrow as successor of Honecker.
Professor Manfred Görtemaker from Institute of History of Potsdam University also confirmed that Moscow had viewed Modrow as possible successor of Honecker. „My research have been showing that it was thought that Modrow might become “the German Gorbachev‘. Markus Wolf, the spy-master was chosen for the role of an important contact between the reformers, armed bodies of the GDR and the Soviet leadership.
The former Senior Lieutenant of Stasi and Wolf’s confident Günter Bohnsack recalls that Wolf had worked out plans for his personal role in the new political leadership of the GDR. However, Wolf failed to get the country’s security forces to back him, Berliner Morgenpost marks.
The former foreign policy adviser of the Soviet leaders and former USSR ambassador to the FRG Valentin Falin explained that the Soviet leadership has already in 1987 looked out for Honecker's successor. The names of several GDR politicians have been under discussion. „Gorbachev had reproached Honecker, among other things, for the shooting order on the border”, according to Falin.
According to historian Görtemaker, the KGB agents disguised as journalists were praising Modrow as a reformer in the western press with an aim of creating his positive image. Ex-state security service officer Bohnsack supports him. „ I know that the KGB headquarters were carrying out the so-called active measures, including publications in the West German media”.
The attempts of Michail Gorbachev to let substitute Stalinist Honecker with politicians fond of reforms was known also to the West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). Hans-Georg Wieck, the BND head from 1985 to 1990, told Berliner Morgenpost that the secret service has data at that time that Wolf, Modrow and Dresden city mayor Wolfgang Berghofer had been seen in Moscow as eventual representatives of the new Soviet policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (transformation) in the GDR.
Dutch-owned company accuses Ukraine's Security Service of helping corporate raiders
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is deliberately placing interests associated with the Dutch company Movida International Holdings and Finance B.V. (Movida International) in Ukraine under pressure to facilitate an illegal takeover of its business in the country, the company disclosed, according to PRNewswire.
Movida International stated that the security agencies of Ukraine are deliberately pressuring and the SBU is directly interfering in the business of CJSC JV Krebo, in which Movida International holds the majority share, with the purpose of illegal takeover of its business. In April, the Antitrust Committee of Ukraine accused the Closed Joint-Stock Company Ukrainian-Dutch Joint Venture Krebo (Movida International being its majority shareholder) of monopolistic inflation of prices for aviation fuel at Borispol International Airport, where CJSC JV Krebo supplies aviation fuel, an activity which forms the basis of the company's business.
Movida commented that the SBU, based on illegal court decisions, searched the company's offices resorting to physical force, psychological pressure on the company's employees, banning any contacts with lawyers, and threatening arrests. Movida International treats such actions of the Security Service of Ukraine as interference with the company's business, violations of the Ukrainian Constitution, and violations of Ukrainian laws on the protection of human rights and protection of foreign investments, of all international conventions in these fields ratified by Ukraine.
The company authority and former authority of the airport were suspected of illegal infrastructure alienation relating to the aircraft refueling in Borispol in favor of the company, Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper reported.
Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service has no information about New York Times report
Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service said today it did not have any information on a United States CIA detention centre in Bucharest, as reported by The New York Times online edition, news agency Mediafax reports.
"The Romanian Intelligence Service has no information or data regarding the statements published in the online edition of The New York Times on 13 August 2009," Mediafax cites the security service. Its statement came in response to an article published by The New York Times quoting US officials about a secret CIA prison in "a renovated building on a busy street in Bucharest, Romania." It said also that information about the existence of such prisons for Al-Qaida terrorists had been kept secret.
The Romanian Senate voted in April 2008 to approve a report by an investigative commission that said Romania had not hosted CIA detention centres or secret US military bases, Mediafax adds.
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