REVIEW TOPICS:
More spies and traitors may appear in Russia after adoption of amendments on espionage and high treason
German intelligence was also paying to Russian spy from Estonia
Truth about activity of Russian spy will not emerge in foreseeable future, Estonian security services superviser believes
Security Police of Estonia suspected civil engineering company official of bribery
Lithuanian President summons security chiefs to discuss challenges of economic and financial crisis
CIA declassifies reports written by Polish spy who helped bring down Communism
Police considers two versions of reasons of attack on Ukraine’s Security Service Colonel
Security Service of Ukraine adviced parliament members to read Ukrainian newspapers more thoroughly
Security Service of Ukraine seized drugs worth UAH 250 million in 2008
President of Moldova appointed new deputy directors of security service
More spies and traitors may appear in Russia after adoption of amendments on espionage and high treason
Much more spies and traitors of the native land may appear in Russia; the State Duma has been considering the bill which offers expanding of concepts of high treason and espionage, Radio Ekho Moskvy reports. According to news agency RIA Novosti, it is marked in an explanatory note that the bill has been prepared on the basis of analysis of activity of the Federal Security Service of Russia on revealing, suppression and investigation of crimes, responsibility for which is stipulated by specified articles of the criminal code.
The authors of the bill suggest considering the high treason not only hostile activity to the detriment of external security of the country, but also an act directed against constitutional order, the sovereignty, territorial and state integrity. Lawyer Anna Stavitskaja said in an interview to daily Kommersant that all the listed attributes of high treason were themselves very amorphous concepts which were not registered precisely in the law and consequently they could be treated as one liked.
Meanwhile the concept of espionage has also been expanded. Now under this clause these are acts that cause damage to the country’s security and not only to external security but also it is the transfer of classified information to international organizations.
Human rights activists are afraid of return of Stalin-era when everyone who had dared to criticize the authorities could became a traitor of the native land and a spy, Ekho Moskvy marks. Radio notes that the government explains necessity of amendments with care of law enforcement bodies. In an explanatory note it is said that it is difficult to prove the fault of defendants under espionage and high treason clauses because of narrow formulations.
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German intelligence was also paying to Russian spy from Estonia
The foreign intelligence service Germany BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) for several years used the former adviser of Ministry of Defence of Estonia, Herman Simm, as an agent, German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reveals. Simm was supplying the BND with data on activity of the Russian intelligence in the Baltics, and Germans generously paid for it, writes Der Spiegel. «It is not yet clear whether Simm was giving false data on Russian instructions, or simply wished to receive double compensation».
According to Der Spiegel, Simm’s meetings with agents of the BND were taking place basically in large Western European cities and cooperation with him was stopped shortly before Estonia joined the European Union in 2004.
Der Spiegel writes about suspicion of Germans that Simm could have transferred data of confidential system of enciphering to the Russians. „Since 2004, the NATO uses Elcrodat system developed in Germany. Telephone conversations and a turn of documents between headquarters of NATO in Bruxelles and its members are ciphered using it", notes the magazine.
Truth about activity of Russian spy will not emerge in foreseeable future, Estonian security services supervisor believes
The chairman of the parliamentary special commission on supervision of security services, Jaanus Rahumagi, believes that in the nearest 50 years public would hardly learn the truth about activity of the Russian spy Herman Simm, Estonian TV reports.
"I am confident that within the nearest 50 years wide public will not learn the truth. I also consider that in the court only that part of Simm’s working will be considered which he himself has admitted”, Rahumagi told in an interview to Aktual Kamera program of the Estonian Public Television.
He also added that he did not have powers to make comments on Simm’s espionage case related to high treason. Rahumagi only said that all what was Simm reporting to Russia on security details has already changed. "All the information which was known to Simm has been changed. All the systems have been changed, too,” he added.
The Estonian TV program mentioned that evidently Simm was also transferring false information to the West, according to orders of the Russian secret services.
Security Police of Estonia suspected civil engineering company official of bribery
The member of board of civil engineering firm Merko Ehitus, Tonu Korts, told an Estonian Television program details of his visit to the Security Police of Estonia (KaPo) in connection with the scandal about alleged bribes in the Tallinn mayoralty.
«As the law enforcement bodies do not wish to publicise the content of their suspicion and in press there are various speculations, I have to tell about suspicions myself to avoid new rumours», announced Korts. According to Korts, the version of the Security Police is that he as a board member of Merko Ehitus company, have allegedly presented the adviser of vice-mayor of Tallinn, Ivo Parbus, a book in which a EEK 25,000 gift certificate of travel company Estravel was enclosed.
According to the Security Police, this gift became a way of promotion of many large building projects in the capital city of Estonia, added Korts. No other suspicions has been shown, according to Korts. He expressed his hope that the investigation would help him to find out the truth.
Lithuanian President summons security chiefs to discuss challenges of economic and financial crisis
The President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus summoned a meeting of the new country leaders after the composition of the new government to discuss eventual actions on case of critical situation aggravated by economic and financial crisis, daily Respublika reports.
"Economic crisis is threatening national security," is the headline of the online paper Delfi reporting on the event. "In the conditions of economic recession, instability threatening national security of the state can arise in Lithuania,” Delfi cites the speaker of parliament Arunas Valinskas who stressed that „it is better to speak about those problems beforehand instead of talking about them only when they occur”. According to Delfi, President Valdas Adamkus, parliamentary chairman Arunas Valinskas, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, Chairman of the parliamentary defense and national security committee Arvidas Anusauskas, the head of State Security Department (VSD) Povylas Malakauskas and other officials for three hours discussed problems which the state may expect in the event that the country will be overflowed with a wave of bankruptcies and citizens will start to massively lose jobs". "At the meeting were discussed problems which could emerge with an aggravation of the complex financial situation", president’s press-attache Rita Grumadaite told the press. President Adamkus wished smooth coordination and trust between the VSD and the President, the parliament and the government. It was separately emphasized that the mission of the VSD, new tasks put forward before the security service and its responsibility before the population of Lithuania was also discussed.
Mass media were not informed on more concrete eventual dangers. Prime Minister Kubilius only noted that danger could arise only in the event that the economic situation would worsen, if bankruptcies of large enterprises will begin in the country, and "when economic problems become problems of concrete people", Delfi reports.
CIA declassifies reports written by Polish spy who helped bring
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Ryszard Kuklinski |
down Communism
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has declassified over a thousand pages of reports handed to the Americans by the late Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, an officer serving in the General Staff of the People's Army of Poland (1976-1981), and dealing with Communist regime preparations to enforce martial law in Poland in December 1981, Polish Radio reports. The CIA has now disclosed around 1,000 out of the approximately 40.000 pages of most classified documents concerning Poland, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, involving Moscow’s plans to use nuclear weapons that Kuklinski conveyed to the US.
The documents were made public during a special session in CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, devoted to Kuklinski. It was accompanied by a screening of War Games, a film by Dariusz Jablonski about Kuklinski which was attended by CIA chief Michael Hayden and former presidential national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Hayden called the agent a hero and patriot whose activities had helped save many lives.
Speaking to the radio CIA historian Nicholas Dujmovic said the revealed documents do not give a clear answer to the question of General Wojciech Jaruzelski's decision to enforce martial law in Poland. “Unfortunately the release is not complete and may be disappointing to some people and I know Polish people are looking to restore their own history. It is disappointing to me as a historian but it's a good start. So stay tuned, as we say, there will be more such releases.”
According to Kuklinski, an invasion of Poland by Warsaw Pact nations was scheduled for December 1980, during the height of the Solidarity trade unions pressure for reform, though the action was subsequently called off. In February 1981, after Jaruzelski had been elevated to prime minister, plans to speed up the introduction martial law in Poland were presented to officials of the KGB who were in Warsaw.
In June, information handed by Kuklinski to the CIA reported that Moscow had ordered Soviet families living in Poland to leave by 15 June. He also reported Warsaw Pact troops movements in Poland.
Other documents show Moscow's reluctance to initiate armed intervention in Poland, but at the same time Kuklinski stressed, what he saw, as its eventual inevitability. The information sheds light on the circumstances of declaring martial law, a subject central to the ongoing trial of Jaruzelski and other generals who are charged with crimes against the nation. According to Kuklinski, it was General Kiszczak who was keenest on a quick clampdown on the Solidarity trade union, using the advantage of surprise to smash the opposition. Another aspect of the documents that the CIA has released is that despite knowing about the plans for the introduction of martial law, the American government did not let Solidarity know about them. For nearly ten years, Kuklinski was the CIA's top spy in the Soviet bloc, NPR program emphasized yesterday.
Born in 1930 in Warsaw, Kuklinski joined the Polish military in 1947. He began cooperating with the CIA after the bloody suppression of workers' strikes in Gdask, Gdynia and Szczecin in December 1970. In 1981, Kuklinski and his family left Poland with the help of the American intelligence community. Kuklinski was sentenced to death in absentia in 1984, a sentence that was later commuted to 25 years in prison and finally overturned in 1997. He died in 2004 in Florida. In 1982, then-CIA director William Casey wrote to President Reagan that no one had done more than Kuklinski to undermine communism over the previous 40 years, Warsaw Business Journal notes.
Police considers two versions of reasons of attack on Ukraine’s Security Service Colonel
The police have been considering two versions of the reasons of an attack on a Colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine in Lvov, news agency RBC-Ukraine reports, referring to an informed police source. The investigation is carried out by Frankovsk regional department of police of Lvov.
According to one of the versions, the attack could be explained with a robbery attempt, the other one considers that the attack might be connected with the criminal case on bribery by the Chairman of Lvov Court of Appeal Igor Zvarych.
Unknown persons attacked a Colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine last week in the city of Lvov. The State Office of General Prosecutor of Ukraine brought a criminal case against the Chairman of the Lvov Administrative Court of Appeal on materials of the Security Service of Ukraine for reception of a bribe in especially large amount.
Security Service of Ukraine adviced parliament members to more thoroughly read Ukrainian newspapers
The Acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentin Nalyvaychenko studied in the
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| Valentin Nalyvaychenko |
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Institute of Intelligence named after Yuri Andropov, not in the Higher School of the USSR State Security Committee, according to the head of press-service SBU Marina Ostapenko who was making comments on inquiry of members of the Supreme Rada (parliament) of Ukraine with the request to check up the corresponding information of a Russian newspaper, daily Ukrainskaya pravda reports.
Thus Ostapenko advised the parliament members to read « Ukrainian newspapers instead of Moscow ones». In particular, she reminded that back in July in an interview to the Fakty. Sobytiya i Lyudi, Nalyvaychenko already told where he had studied, „and he did not try to hide these facts of the biography”. In the interview Nalyvaychenko told about his studies in the Institute of Intelligence named after Andropov where he received his second higher education. He said he was the last listener from Ukraine in the Institute and he had a choice, whether to remain in Moscow or to come back home.
15 members of the Supreme Rada sent a corresponding inquiry addressed to the editor-in-chief of the daily Moskovskaya pravda and specified that in the issue of newspaper dated November 14, 2008, there was information that Valentin Nalyvaychenko ostensibly is a graduate of the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR. The parliament members asked the Moscow paper to present documentary acknowledgment of the fact of Nalyvaychenko’s studies and at absence of such acknowledgment to publish a refutation in the newspaper.
The reply of the newspaper stressed that the Moskovskaya pravda was not a keeper of the KGB archive and recommended the Ukrainian parliament members to ask Nalyvaychenko himself about his education.
Security Service of Ukraine seized drugs worth UAH 250 million in 2008
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in 2008 seized drugs worth UAH 250 million (USD 1=UAH 7.47), according to the press service of the SBU, National Radio and Television Company of Ukraine reports.
This year, the security agency confiscated 216.8 kilograms of heroin, 53.2 kilograms of cocaine, 12.8 kilograms of methadone, 22.1 kilograms of psychotropic substances and over 2.6 kilograms of precursors. The overall value of confiscated drugs set at black market prices is over UAH 250 million. According to specialists, this amount of drugs is enough to produce around five million drug doses.
According to SBU General Valery Kravchenko, the SBU has information that a million of US dollars was allocated to promote methadone programs in Ukraine, online site Rising Voices writes. It is understandable that pharmaceutical companies which produce methadone should sell it somewhere, but this is a drug and will not stop the addiction, General marked.
President of Moldova appointed new deputy directors of security service
The President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin has signed the decree on appointment of Mikhail Bodyan and Alexander Lunkar to the posts of the deputy directors of the Information and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova, information agency Lenta PMR reports.
Before the appointment to the posts of the deputy directors of the Information and Security Service, Alexander Lunkar headed the Soroksk management of financial control and audit, and Mikhail Bodyan held a post of the head of the Information and Security Service department, Lenta PMR expands.
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