REVIEW TOPICS:
Russian military intelligence says it found out details of millions-worth armament deal between Georgia and Pentagon
Search carried out in house of former Russian GRU battalion officer Musa Yamadayev
Moldovan security service engaged in investigation of explosion on gas pipeline
Bulgaria’s President and Prime Minister entered into indirect argument on DANS and missing documents scandals
Bulgarian President claims no discrediting of secret service going on
Former head of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security to face court over leak scandal
Special task group to search for Swedish steamship on secret services mission which was lost in 1947
Russian military intelligence found out details of millions-worth armament deal between Georgia and Pentagon
An official of the Russian military intelligence who wished to remain unnamed ‘leaked’ to journalists today the information that the United States have allegedly offered supplying of large lot of armament, military equipment and ammunition to Georgia in the amount of more than $100 million, and to carry out the transaction through the private company, Barrington Alliance Incorporated with the head office in Chicago, instead of governmental channels, online edition of the Moscow daily Izvestia reports. It says the offered armament includes upgraded ground-to-air missiles Patriot-3, personal portable infrared homing surface-to-air missiles Stinger and Igla-3 missiles of portable and motorized versions, Javelin man-portable surface-to-air missiles, and precision-strike semiactive laser-guided Hellfire II missile systems. The quantity of ammunition, including cartridges for small arms, has been estimated in dozens of millions pieces, according to the Russian military intelligence official.
The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has confirmed this information. "After the military confrontation in the Caucasus, the Ministry of Defence of Georgia created a structure under the name, Studying of Warfare Lessons. According to its conclusions, it is necessary to urgently raise potentialities of the Georgian army in conducting of anti-aircraft and anti-tank defense, and also to have highly mobile forces of special operations capable to effectively operate in the mountains and equipped by modern means of warfare, the official of the military intelligence has prepared read the prepared text to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS. „The delivery to Georgia of the specified armament by the USA completely corresponds to conclusions of the Georgian militaries".
Last week the head of the Russian military intelligence Alexander Shlyakhturov declared that the NATO member-states, Ukraine and Israel had been rendering military assistance to Georgia. The NATO delivers small arms and equipment, the USA conduct trainings of personnel, Israel sells drones, and Ukraine sells tanks and means of air defence, according to the head of the Russian GRU, Newsru adds.
Russia Today TV channel, referring to Israel's daily Maariv, reports that the US is hiring Russian-made freight planes belonging to UTI Worldwide Inc. to transport arms and ammunition to Georgia. The paper says the Pentagon is redirecting supplies to Tbilisi that were earmarked for Iraq.
Search carried out in house of former Russian GRU battalion officer Musa Yamadayev
The search has been carried out in the house of Musa Yamadayev, one of the Yamadayev brothers Chechen clan and a former officer of the Russian GRU Vostok battalion, radio Ekho Moskvy reports.
Referring to the Investigatory Committee of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, news agency Interfax expands that this action was authorized by court within the framework of a criminal case. Musa Yamadayev is a suspect in the case on disappearance of the member of the GRU Vostok battalion, Alikhan Khaladov. Musa Yamadayev was repeatedly summoned to interrogations, however he never attended any.
Moldovan security service engaged in investigation of explosion on gas pipeline
The Security and Information Service of Moldova has been participating ininvestigation of an explosion which took place on the segment of a gas pipeline between the villages Saiti and Opaci of Causeni district on November 8, news agencies are reporting from Chisinau. The blast s causes are being established, according to a communique by the government’s press service.
Gas transit to the Balkans was not interrupted due to timely change of the gas transit scheme and the increase in pressure in the main gas pipeline Shebelinka-Dnepropetrovsk-Krivoy Rog-Ismail, according to a press release by the Moldovagaz stock company.
The explosion occurred at a depth of 4 meters, the affected portion having a length of 12 meters and a width of 4 meters. As a result, settlements from Stefan Voda district and nine settlements from Causeni districts have been cut off from gas supply.
Prime Minister Vladimir Filat asked to be permanently informed about the evolution of the situation. He chaired a meeting today focused on the explosion, news agency Moldpress reports referring to the government's mass-media relations department. The participants in the meeting set up a special state commission in charge of investigating the blast's causes and consequences and appointed Moldovan Interior Minister Victor Catan to head it.
The Prime Minister paid attention to the fact that the latest explosion was already the second one in the last six months and named it an alarming situation. He also asked the state commission in charge of probing the blast's causes and consequences to present the results of investigation within 10 days.
The members of the commission are: Oleg Sirbu, commission's secretary, of the State Chancellery; Deputy Economy Minister Ocatavian Calmic; Alexandru Popescu of the Security and Information Service; Igor Serbinov of the Prosecutor General's Office; Mihai Coca of the Environment Ministry; Mihail Harabagiu of the Department of Civil Protection and Emergencies and Alexandru Gusev of Moldovagaz.
It is expected that the damaged gas pipeline would become functional on November 11; gas supplies to all affected settlements will be resumed by November 15, Moldpress says.
Bulgaria’s President and Prime Minister entered into indirect argument on DANS and missing documents scandals
The President of Bulgaria Georgi Purvanov, and Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, expressed their dissatisfaction with the positions held by the other about the solution of problems, such as combating crime and the scandals at the State Agency for National Security (DANS), Focus News Agency reports.
According to President Purvanov, over the last 20 years of transition period, the judicial power is put under pressure over solution of political issues, including during the new government. The President criticized the lack of counter-crisis measures, as well as the fact that society’s attention is focused on interpersonal scandals at DANS, news agency notes.
Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said he wished for the good manners between the institutions to be preserved but shifted the responsibility over the condition of the special services on the previous government. According to Borissov, it is not the new government but the President who exerts political pressure on the court because the Supreme Judicial Council and the chief prosecutors have been appointed by the former three-way coalition.
“The scandals have been caused by the people who President Georgi Purvanov appointed prime ministers. They established the State Agency for National Security (DANS), they generated the problems, they are creating the problems at the moment”, Borissov told the journalists, according to Focus News Agency.
Borissov abstained from commenting on the charges that “the prosecutors are about to bring – this is their own business”, speaking on the leak of the DANS reports. In Borissov’s words, the previous government did nothing about the criminal bosses and organized crime over the last four years since everything in the leaked reports has been made public and they have been warned.
Former head of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security to face court over leak scandal
Petko Sertov, former director of the State Agency for National Security (DANS), is expected to be questioned by prosecutors over missing classified reports of the agency, together with former Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, Sofia News Agency reports. It cites Sofia City prosecutor Nikolai Kokinov who stated that there would be most probably two defendants in the case.
The news agency marks that the probe will set a precedent in Bulgarian justice as this will be the first time that a former prime minister and head of the secret services face the court over the same charges.
The two will be probed on allegations that eight classified reports prepared by the national security agency, and two by the Interior Ministry, and submitted to former Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, including reports on smuggling and corruption, are missing from the agency where they should have been returned, according to Sofia News Agency. Former Prime Minister Stanishev will also face charges of making public a top secret report of the State National Security Agency DANS incriminating state officials with violations.
The scandalous top security report leaked at the end of October and was announced by Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, who said he had received it from former secret service agent Alexei Petrov, an adviser to former DANS director Petko Sertov.
Bulgarian President claims no discrediting of secret service going on
The President of Bulgaria Georgi Purvanov told journalists in Sofia that there was no discrediting in the State Agency for National Security (DANS), Focus News Agency reports.
“The former employees of the agency have banded words with each other and I am against institutions to become hostages of this conflict. Their relations are their business let them set things square,” news agency cites President Purvanov.
He noted that the DANS had been considered to be a service the President had little to do with. At the same time Purvanov added that “if the decision changes to be made in the agency is beneficial for the government in fighting crime, corruption, terrorism, I, of course would support it”. He further referred to removing of some of the present functions of the security agency according to its new Act. Purvanov expanded that he has always had doubts when it comes structural changes and devolution of functions from one place to another. “This raises uncertainty in the employees and sometimes conditions for demonization,” the President added.
Special task group to search for Swedish steamship on secret services mission which was lost in 1947
The Swedish Foreign Ministry has decided to form a special task group to provide answers to the fate of the Sten Sture steamship which went missing in 1947 with its 18 crew after leaving the port of Gdansk heading for southern Sweden with a load of coal, Polish Radio reports. The vessel disappeared in the Baltic Sea, most probably off the Polish coast. The search operation by the Swedish authorities is to be conducted at the request of the missing sailors’ families, radio adds.
The ship never reached its destination and after a protracted search by three Swedish air force planes it had been assumed the Sten Sture went down after hitting a sea mine north of Bornholm. However, in 1997 Polish divers located a sunken hull near the lighthouse at Rozewie and identified it as that of the missing Swedish ship. This is some 300 kilometres from the initially assumed place of the tragedy.
There are clues allowing investigators to suspect that the Sten Sture was actually on a mission for the Swedish secret services, the aim of which was to evacuate through Poland its agents pulled out of the Soviet Union at the time, Polish Radio marks. It is speculated the ship could have been sunk by the Soviet fleet, while the Swedes on board were abducted to the USSR, radio notes.
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