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09.05.2006
Polish Nightmares of the Russian Counterintelligence |
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| Simon Araloff, AIA European section | |||||||||||||||||||
Russian version
After 1945 when a communist regime was established in Poland, its intelligence (Urzad Bezpieczenstwa - UB) was created under vigilant patronage of the Soviet “comrades". However, despite of all this, even during the Cold War relations between the secret services of the two countries were not cloudless. The trust of Moscow was undermined by a series of runaways to the West, managed by the Polish intelligence officers in the second half of the 1950’s. However the tension in the relations between the both sides culminated two decades later, at the end of the 1970’s. KGB did not hide its disappointment with the too soft, in its opinion, attitude of then Polish secret service (Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa - SB) to the leaders of the Solidarity movement. Besides, the Poles rather reluctantly shared the intelligence data collected in the West with their Soviet "colleagues". To the horror of the permanent representative of the KGB in Warsaw, the Polish intelligence officers and counterspies openly visited churches. Finally, two employees of the Polish embassy were detained in the very centre of Moscow in an attempt of realization of an electronic intelligence operation. At least, this was alleged by the KGB. After the incident all encryption machines were replaced at the Soviet embassy in Warsaw. During the post-Soviet era the tension in the Polish-Russian intelligence front has only increased. Warsaw’s joining the NATO and the EU, participation of the Polish army in the American operation in Iraq, and also the support by the Polish government to the Chechen national movement and opposition in Ukraine and Belarus, have given Russia a pretext for putting Poland in the category of foes. The Russian intelligence has developed rather vigorous activity in the Polish territory. In this connection it is enough to recall the detention of a Russian agent in one of divisions of the Polish military intelligence (Wojskowa S³u¿ba Informacyjna - WSI) two years ago. In parallel, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has started catching of "the Polish spies" in territory of Russia itself. Not having an opportunity to present the proofs of any really large action of the Polish scouts to the public, the press-service of the FSB has suffused the Russian press with the stories about "tens of recruiting approaches" to the Russian "shuttles", that is, the petty traders traveling to Poland for the goods. As it was declared, the Polish secret services go on the open blackmail of this category of the Russian citizens with the purpose of getting some intelligence information from them by craft. The Federal Security Service of Russia did not tell what information those people, not great intellectuals in the majority, are capable to give to the Poles. Thus, the present incriminatory of the Russian authorities against the Polish intelligence is quite falling within the historical context of the use of it as a kind of eternal bogey for the Russian citizen. Besides the political conjuncture in the last some couple of years has been rather favorable for conducting the hunting for "the Polish spies". The geopolitical opposition between Moscow and Warsaw that has even more intensified under the rule of President Putin, is inciting the coal of the old hatred even stronger. Several Polish citizens beaten in the centre of Moscow by "unknown hooligans" last year have already become its victims. It is worth adding at that also the present hunting of “foreign spies” – not only the Poles -- carried out throughout Russia. Under the conditions when even the Department of the FSB at the far-away Chukotka, with a chief dreaming of moving to Moscow, annually reports about suppression of the activities of tens of "foreign spies", one has no need to get surprised at the reports on "the intrigues of the Polish intelligence" at all. So much the worse the relations between Moscow and Warsaw will be, the FSB would more actively show its ardor to the ruling regime, and many more the most improbable Polish spies, like the already mentioned huckster Sergey, will be caught by the valiant Russian counterintelligence. Related items: Spying Myths of the Russian - Polish Confrontation
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