Free Republic

Twenty-first century Russia has three famous faces: Anna Chapman, the failed spy, who came in from the cold to become a red hot sex symbol back home; Alexander Litvinenko, the spy-turned-dissident, who was poisoned by a radioactive polonium isotope in London; and Vladimir Putin, the KGB colonel-turned-president, who had himself re-elected for a six-year term last month. It is no accident that all three of these faces belong to former intelligence officers. The point of Deception is to explain how and why Putin's Russia has succeeded in fooling us all, both about its own sinister nexus of espionage, politics and...

Russia's interior minister called on Tuesday for limits on the Internet to prevent a slide in traditional cultural values among young people, raising fears of controls over the vibrant Russian-language web. Many of Russia's 53 million web users fear that hardliners around Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would like to impose Chinese-style limits on the Internet to stave off any potential Arab Spring-style unrest ahead of the presidential election. Russia's iPad-wielding president, Dmitry Medvedev, has ruled out draconian controls while suggesting a discussion of how to deal with clearly illegal content such as child pornography. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev is the...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has formed an inter-departmental commission headed by the country''s Interior Minister to combat home-grown extremism in the backdrop of Norway-like massacre. According to the Kremlin, the commission will develop measures to prevent manifestations of extremism and remove those conditions which fuel it. The commission will also include 16 heads of other ministries and agencies - from the Federal Security Service (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to the ministries of Culture and mass communications. The Russian social networking site vKontakte, the home grown copy of Facebook, had to shut its services for some time after it was...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 24 (UPI) -- Russia's recent expulsion of the military attache at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow on charges of spying has been linked to the Jewish state's efforts to impede the sale of Russian weapons systems to Iran, Syria and Arab states. One report from Moscow, quoting an unidentified Russian security official, said the Israeli, Col. Vadim Leiderman, had engaged in "industrial espionage -- or rather his overly active work on behalf of certain Israeli companies on the Russian market." But Russia's Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, said in an official statement that Leiderman,...

THE NEW NOBILITY: THE RESTORATION OF RUSSIA'S SECURITY STATE AND THE ENDURING LEGACY OF THE KGB By Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan PublicAffairs, $26.95, 299 pages No one familiar with the security system of the old USSR expected the KGB to dry up and blow away when communism collapsed in 1991. Further, many of us doubted whatever government replaced the Soviet state would make any changes of substance in its intelligence agencies. Skepticism is proving well-founded. Indeed, the newly constituted security services are more shadowy and powerful than was the KGB at its prime. The Federal Security Service (Federalnaya Sluzhba...

Ireland ordered a Russian diplomat expelled Tuesday, after an investigation found that Russia’s intelligence service used six stolen Irish identities as cover for spies operating in the United States. Ireland opened the investigation after the F.B.I. in June smashed a Russian spy ring involving 10 men and women posing as American suburbanites in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Virginia. Last year, Ireland expelled an Israeli diplomat over the suspected use of Irish passports, by agents of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, to assassinate a top official of Hamas in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Israel has refused to...

According to Russian experts, the domestic FSB security service is trying to subsume the SVR foreign intelligence service in order to recreate a latter day KGB in all but name. Supporters of the plan are seeking to capitalise on the SVR's worst post-Soviet failure, the deportation of ten of its sleeper agents from the United States this summer, arguing that the debacle proved that the SVR had lost its way, it is claimed. Pavel Felgenhauer, an intelligence agencies expert, said: "The mass collapse, arrest and subsequent deportation of ten Russian illegal agents from the USA has become a pretext for...

Wow it's going to take the Russians so shut this guy's ego down. Watch out for the borscht Mr. Assange!

debkafile's intelligence sources report from Iran that dozens of Russian nuclear engineers, technicians and contractors are hurriedly departing Iran for home since local intelligence authorities began rounding up their compatriots as suspects of planting the Stuxnet malworm into their nuclear program. Among them are the Russian personnel who built Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr which Tehran admits has been damaged by the virus. One of the Russian nuclear staffers, questioned in Moscow Sunday, Oct. 3 by Western sources, confirmed that many of his Russian colleagues had decided to leave with their families after team members were detained for questioning...

SNIPPET: "Oops, Microsoft did it again. Part of the company’s Government Security Program (GSP), Microsoft has offered the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) a peek inside the source code of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server. This is the second time that the company has (publicly) shared source code with the FSB, following a similar deal which took place in 2002, this time involving source code for Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2000. Microsoft has done similar deals with China in 2003, and most recently in 2010. However, in the light of...

Alleged spy Anya Chapman and dad Vasily Kushchenko worked for a high profile Russian PR firm. The 4 Vlast (the Forth power) is the owner of the Mrs. World-Russia brand. In fact Vasily Kushchenko is listed as contact person for the Mrs World-St. Petersburg edition of the pageant. The President of Mrs. America and Mrs. World pageant is an American: David Marmel. Here is what he said at a press-conference before the event in St Peterburg: I am Russian by origin; my father and mother were born in Russia. Although I grew up in America, I always felt like I...

The Russian spy case that exploded into public view this week was preceded by nearly a decade of cat-and-mouse activities with the FBI, according to court documents and an interview with a senior U.S. official familiar with the case.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday criticized the arrests of suspects in an alleged Russian spy ring, saying U.S. law-enforcement authorities "went out of control." He voiced hope that the scandal would not harm relations between the two countries. Russia's Foreign Ministry acknowledged that some of the suspects are Russian citizens. It called on American authorities to give them access to lawyers and Russian consular officials, and to take into account the "positive character" of U.S.-Russian ties in treating the case. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday announced the arrests of 10 alleged deep-cover Russian agents, saying...

US President Barack Obama knew about the FBI operation to smash an alleged Russian spy ring before meeting President Dmitry Medvedev last week, but did not raise it at the talks, an aide said. But the White House said the revelations, which were condemned by Russia, would not interfere with the effort by both sides to 'reset' their relations, which has been pursued ever since Obama took office last year. The alleged operation was busted just a few days after a warm summit between Obama and Medvedev at the White House at which both sides made an elaborate effort to...

One hobnobbed with academics and entrepreneurs who shared his interest in cutting-edge science. Another spoke five languages, went to embassy parties and was fascinated by global politics. A third held herself out to be a venture capitalist and hit the networking circuit, looking for investment opportunities. The 11 people arrested and accused of being members of a Russian spy ring operating under deep cover in America's suburbs appear to have been part of a slow and patient plan by Moscow to cultivate contacts in the U.S. who could yield vital competitive information — not necessarily on weapons or U.S. strategic...

One of the Cold War's most famous defectors said Tuesday that Russia may have as many as 50 deep-cover couples spying inside the United States. Oleg Gordievsky, a former deputy head of the KGB in London who defected in 1985, said President Dmitry Medvedev would know the number of illegal operatives in each target country. The 71-year-old ex-double agent said that, based on his experience in Russian intelligence, he estimates that Moscow likely has 40 to 50 couples operating undercover in the United States. "For the KGB, there's usually 40 to 50 couples, all illegal," said Gordievsky, who defected to...

Russian security forces dealt a double blow to the al Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate during operations in the southern Russian republics late last week. Emir Magas, the military commander of the Caucasus Emirate, was captured and Yasir Amarat, a wanted terrorist commander from Jordan, was killed during raids by Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. On June 9, the FSB captured Emir Magas, whose real name is Ali Taziyev, during a raid in the village of Malgobek in the Republic of Ingushetia. Kavkaz Center, a jihadist website that supports the Caucasus Emirate, confirmed Magas' capture and noted his importance. Magas has...

Memorandum Regarding the Visit to Ukainian Catholic Univ of a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) (former KGB) At 9:27 in the morning Fr. Borys Gudziak received a call on his private mobile phone from a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine requesting a meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 20 minutes later at the rectorate of UCU. In a polite manner the agent related that certain political parties are planning protests and demonstrations regarding the policies of the new Ukrainian authorities. He stated that, of course, students are allowed to protest but that they should be...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxPAdmlZCHI&feature=player_embedded

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQzlIT9zDlI "Indian diplomat turns spy" Video Description - quote: ndtv — April 27, 2010 — Madhuri Gupta, an IFS officer, has confessed that she sold secrets for love, money and because "service conditions were bad". Category: News & Politics Tags: Barkha Dutt diplomat IFS officer India Madhuri Pakistan spy NDTV 24x7

<p>MOSCOW — Russia's parliament is considering a government-drafted bill that would increase the power of the security services and restore practices once associated with their Soviet predecessor, the KGB.</p> <p>The legislation would allow Federal Security Service officers to summon individuals for informal talks and issue written warnings about "inadmissible" participation in anti-government activities such as protest rallies. It also appeared aimed at tightening controls on journalists.</p>

Moscow, April 21 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Russia will set up a joint venture with Israel to produce advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) required for the enhancement of reconnaissance system of the Russian armed forces, a senior official said Wednesday. State Technology Corporation Rostekhnologii plans to establish a joint venture with Israel Airspace Industry for the production of UAVs. ‘We have already bought 15 drones for testing and we do not rule out a joint production of UAVs with Israel,’ Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian corporation, told RIA Novosti. Russian Deputy Defence Minister Vladimir Popovkin said earlier that Russia had spent...

The Woods of Smolensk The Polish President and numerous top officials died aboard a TU-154 while trying to land at Smolensk airbase.He was on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre which took place in the woods near that city. ... After Poland went down before the onslaught of Nazi and Soviet forces in 1939-40, Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria decided to decapitate the country’s society. Since the Polish army required all university graduates to become reserve officers, the NKVD decided to kill two birds with one stone and eliminate the both the trained military manpower...

Monday's attacks on Moscow's subways provide an odious reminder of the Russian empire's post-Cold War instability and the Russian government's severe internal challenges. As this column goes to press, no organization has claimed responsibility for the attacks that left 39 dead and scores wounded, though Russian commentators and international analysts suspect Islamist-inspired separatists in the northern Caucasus region planned and executed the terror strikes. Russian security forces are fighting guerrilla and terrorist cells based in troubled Caucasus political fragments like Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. Islamist separatist groups from these areas have used "the woman-delivered weapon" in previous attacks on Russian...

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) - Russian officials say two suicide bombings in the southern province of Dagestan have killed at least nine people including two policemen. The incident comes two days after a twin suicide bombing tore through the Moscow subway, killing 39. A regional Interior Ministry spokesman told The Associated Press that the blasts occurred Wednesday morning in the town of Kizlyar, near Dagestan's border with Chechnya. Police pulled over a suspicious-looking car, when the driver detonated explosives. As police officers and residents gathered at the scene there was a second blast. Rebels from the North Caucasus, which includes Dagestan...

At least 25 people are reported to have been killed in an explosion on the Metro system in central Moscow, with a second blast coming shortly afterwards. The first blast happened at the city's central Lubyanka station, reports quoting security sources said. A second explosion happened at the Park Kultury station, Russian news agency Tass reported. Ten people were injured in the first blast, Tass said, quoting the emergencies ministry. The number of casualties at the second blast is not yet clear.

US servicemen will participate in the Victory Day Parade on Red Square in Moscow on May 9, Alexander Vershbow, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs said. The Americans will celebrate the 65th anniversary of Victory in WWII, the official said. Vladimir Kozhin, an official spokesman for the administration of the Russian president, confirmed that Moscow had invited France, Britain and the United States for the parade. The French were the first to agree. They now decide soldiers of which troops will march in the heart of Moscow on May 9. If all is arranged as planned, it will be...

"Russian 'Bin Laden' killed by Moscow's special forces Russia exulted in the death of a terrorist dubbed "the Russian Bin Laden," yesterday claiming it has proof he was behind a deadly train bombing last November that left 28 people dead." By Andrew Osborn in Moscow Published: 7:11PM GMT 07 Mar 2010 SNIPPET: "The FSB intelligence service said a special forces operation had resulted in the death of Sheikh Said Buryatsky, an Islamist convert whose real name was Alexander Tikhomirov."

RUSSIAN investigators have confirmed that the derailment of a passenger train which killed dozens of people was caused by a "terrorist attack", the Interfax news agency reported. "We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack," Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's federal investigative committee... Investigators have found "elements of an explosive device" at the site...

In last 24 hours, an unknown virus (presumed pneumonic plague) infected another 37 thousand and killed 12 more people. The authorities deny that this is pneumonic plague, and insist that people die from influenza, pneumonia and ARI. Meanwhile, an emergency message from the President of Ukraine to the international community to immediately help in the fight against the virus, only reinforces the suspicion that pneumonia and influenza is not the cause. "The current threat to national security of Ukraine, which we can not offset on our own, requires me to turn to our closest friends and strategic partners for emergency...

As the Ford Taurus slowly approached the signal site, hidden FBI agents readied for a possible arrest. For weeks they had been staking out a path in Foxstone Park in Vienna, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. Their elusive quarry was a Soviet mole in the FBI, codenamed “Ramon Garcia.”  ver the course of more than two decades, “Ramon” had done incalculable damage to the United States’ security, selling Top Secret information to the Soviet GRU (military intelligence) and KGB, and to the KGB’s Russian successor agency, the FSB, and its foreign arm, the SVR. Would “Ramon” stop this time? More than...

The Russian parliament and media refer to him merely as a “Russian businessman.” But to much of the rest of the world, Viktor Bout is known as the “Merchant of Death,” the most notorious member of the dark fraternity of global weapons traffickers who arm terrorist organizations, as well as the tyrannical regimes and brutal warlords and militias responsible for horrendous genocidal slaughters over the past two decades. Since his March 2008 arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, in an elaborate U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting, Viktor Bout has been in Bangkok’s Klong Prem Special Prison awaiting trial. The U.S. Department of...

A proposed law could make comparing Soviet rule with that of the Nazis a crime. Intellectuals fear a manipulation of Russia’s past.A bitter joke from the Soviet-era has it that Russia is the world's only country with an unpredictable past. That jibe has come winging back in recent days, after the Kremlin announced the creation of a special 28-member panel tasked with examining and combating examples of "historical revisionism" that harm Russia's image. The committee, which has no legal power, is chaired by the head of President Dmitry Medvedev's administration, Sergei Naryshkin, and includes a sprinkling of historians but also...

IntroductionPresident Barack Obama recently set the wheels in motion to render the ultimate control of our large financial institutions, large insurance companies, large hedge funds and quite possibly our financial markets as well, to a foreign entity. A new international regulatory agency was created at the recent G-20 Summit in London, and all G-20 countries signed onto it. Sadly, you probably have not heard a word about it until now. Prepare to be outraged as you read what follows. And I will tell you how to confirm it on your own. Every freedom-loving American - whether conservative, moderate or liberal...

LONDON (Reuters) - Leaders of the G20 largest developed and emerging economies agreed on Thursday to a $1.1 trillion program to restore global growth and rebuild a financial system, ravaged by the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Here are the key points in the final G20 communique. -- "To treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs (multilateral development banks), to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed...

This is the CORRECT video for the thread.

MOSCOW, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - At least 67 militants have been killed and 233 detained in special operations in the North Caucasus since the beginning of 2009, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday. "At least 67 militants have been eliminated and 233 detained in antiterrorism operations in the North Caucasus in 2009," Alexander Bortnikov said at a meeting of Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee. The committee is meeting in Moscow to consider formally ending the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya and begin the withdrawal of around 20,000 Russia's Interior Ministry troops from the North Caucasus...

MOSCOW: A Moscow jury ruled unanimously on Thursday to acquit three men in the 2006 murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, frustrating state prosecutors' hopes of putting to rest a case that cast a shadow over Vladimir Putin's Russia. Politkovskaya was a strident critic of the Kremlin, and her killing in 2006 underlined the shrinking freedom allowed dissenters in Russian society. Investigators and colleagues concluded that someone had ordered her death to silence her, and some suspected the hand of state officials in the crime. But the three men who were tried on murder charges in a cramped courtroom...

Bombed apartment building in Moscow. Source: liveinternet.ru In 1999, a series of apartment bombings shook Russia and propelled the country headlong into the Second Chechen War. Nearly nine years after the attacks, which claimed 292 lives, many Russians remain unconvinced by the official version of events, which holds that Chechen separatists were responsible. Two sisters, who lost their mother in the attack, have written an open letter to President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to mount a fully open, independent investigation. The sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, currently reside in Missouri. Their appeal (below) was published in the Wall Street...

MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - Russian law enforcement agencies were on Wednesday searching the headquarters of Russian oil firm TNK-BP TNBPI.RTS, half owned by BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), industry sources told Reuters. The company declined to comment. "Searches began this morning and are still continuing," one of the sources said. The reason for the searches was not immediately clear. One source said the searches were being conducted by the Federal Security Service, main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB secret police. TNK-BP is half owned by a group of Russian billionaire shareholders. Many analysts have said they were...

WHEN Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's federal security service (FSB), spoke to his staff to mark the 90th anniversary of the Soviet secret service last year, he made an odd historic diversion. “Those who study history know that security existed before. Sophia Paleologue married Ivan III, and being a niece of the last Byzantine emperor, paid close attention to questions of security.” Few understood what he was talking about. The mystery was cleared up a few weeks later, when Russia's state television channel aired an hour-long film, “The Destruction of the Empire: a Byzantine Lesson”. It proved so popular that...

It was a typical December night in Moscow. The cold was biting, the snow thick and dry. In the Federal Security Service's headquarters on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, hundreds of intelligence officers met as they did every year to celebrate the founding of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police. Champagne glasses tinkled as the officers spoke in jubilant tones. Classical music played softly in the background. The hall grew quiet as Vladimir Putin -- the former FSB director who had been appointed prime minister a few months earlier -- stood to speak. "Dear comrades," Putin said. "I would like to announce to...

MOSCOW — A man formerly held in the U.S. facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was killed Wednesday in a shootout with security agents in a restive North Caucasus republic, Russia's top security agency said. Ruslan Odizhev was killed amid gunfire that erupted when agents tried to arrest him and another man in Kabardino-Balkariya, a region near Chechnya that is plagued by violence linked both to crime and to religious tensions, the Federal Security Service said in a statement. The service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, said Odizhev had been held at Guantanamo Bay and was believed to have been...

Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review AIA FSB Director: terrorists seek nuclear weapons in Russia Nikolai Patrushev Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, who is also chairman of the National Antiterrorist Committee, speaking at today’s session of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, said terrorists were trying to get hold of nuclear weapons in Russia. The powerful FSB leader confirmed that the National Counter-Terrorism Committee has credible information on the issue, news agency RIA Novosti reports. According to the agency, the intelligence information stems from the Russian FSB, as well as from foreign intelligence partners. Organized terrorist groups...

THE NUMBER TWO PERSON IN AL QAEDA, AYMAN AL ZAWAHIRI, IS AN OLD AGENT OF THE FSB (KGB). AYMAN AL ZAWAHIRI, IN 1998, WAS IN THE TERRITORY OF DAGESTAN, WHERE FOR HALF A YEAR HE RECEIVED SPECIAL TRAINING AT ONE OF THE EDUCATIONAL BASES OF THE FSB. AFTER THIS TRAINING HE WAS TRANSFERRED TO AFGHANISTAN, HE PENETRATED THE MILIEU OF BIN LADEN AND SOON BECAME HIS ASSISTANT IN AL QAEDA. TOP OFFICIALS FROM THE UFSB OF DAGESTAN, WHO HAD DIRECTLY WORKED WITH AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI WERE CALLED TO MOSCOW AND RECEIVED HIGH POSTS...

"Operation Bite" : the much-ballyhooed "sneak attack" by US forces on Iran was SUPPOSED to happen yesterday...but didn't. It's beginning to look as if the whole story -including the "high-ranking Russian official" - was an Alex Jones 9/11 "Truther" scam from the get-go ! Could it have been a ploy to raise gold prices ???

A senior Russian journalist who embarrassed the country's powerful military establishment with a series of damaging stories has been found dead outside his flat in mysterious circumstances. The body of Ivan Safronov, the 51-year-old defence correspondent for Russia's progressive Kommersant newspaper, was discovered on Friday. He apparently fell from a fifth-floor window. Although prosecutors say they suspect Mr Safranov committed suicide, colleagues of the dead journalist today insisted that he had no reason to kill himself. He is also the latest in a long line of Russian journalists to have died in unexplained circumstances, they added. "Nobody believes he could...

Who decides when to kill?The technical aspects of extrajudicial retribution had been worked out well in Chechnya. There were thousands of Russian citizens who dissapeared without a trace there - sounds like whole new ways to uphold the law and order have been discovered. An ex-army officer, who had served in Chechnya had told me how people "dissapear", in such a way that neither their relatives nor the law enforcement agencies can find them. The captives are being interrogated under torture, then taken to a remote location, piled into 3-5 men pile and then blown up using a powerfull explosive...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4The security agencies intimidateThe document that was quoted is naturally against the Constitution, the norms of criminal law and any ideas that we may share about a state where extrajudicial punishments are not possible. In any case, this is exactly what the leadership of our country has been saying. But it is quite obvious that inside our country there exists a dedicated system of security agencies aimed exactly at carrying out extrajudicial punishments. But should the quote from an undated and unsigned document be trusted? The person who had leaked the document to...

Litvinenko Shooting Gallery At a Special Forces Training Center The Western media is circulating reports alleging that the Russian Interior Ministry's Vityaz Special Forces use targets featuring a picture of poisoned former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko for shooting practice. The target is visible in the background of a photograph of Russian Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov visiting the Vityaz Training Center near Moscow. The authors of the reports claim that their source was a promotional video about the Russian Special Forces. The scandal exploded on January 25 with the publication of the picture in the well-known Polish newspaper Dziennik, which...