Axis Information and Analysis reports that Russia has tried, and failed to send a known spy to Israel as a diplomat.

The Shabak, Israeli counter-intelligence and internal security service, has forbidden entrance to Israel to the Russian diplomat, Dr Alexander Kryukov, claiming that he is an intelligence officer. Probably Kryukov is exactly the person directed to Israel by Vladimir Putin to head the Centre of Russian Culture and Science about which Putin spoke with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at their meeting in the Kremlin about two weeks ago, online paper NEWSru.com reports.

The Shabak suspects that Kryukov would continue to work in Israel as an agent of the Russian intelligence under a diplomatic covering. Besides there is a fear that the Centre of Russian Culture and Science will be engaged not only in culture, being a convenient base for recruitment of spies and agents of influence among new repatriates, playing on their nostalgia, Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv writes. The state sources have shown discontent with the Shabak’s decision, having declared that it can cause a serious diplomatic scandal between Israel and Russia that would lead to Russia’s countermeasures, say, it might forbid activity of the Israeli official representatives in the territory of Russia.

Already several weeks ago the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has directed to the Israeli counterparts the request for issuing of service passport to Kryukov who will hold a post of the First Secretary of the Russian embassy. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, as it is usual, transferred the request to the Shabak. After the check of the request, security service declared that it follows from information available that Kryukov was a diplomat on service of the Russian intelligence. Shabak officers allege that Kryukov arrives in Israel to engage in espionage and consequently it is impossible to let him enter the country. As a result the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the Russians that there were problems with Kryukov, hoping, that they would understand a hint and would send somebody else, Ma’ariv writes. Alexander Kryukov is not the first Russian diplomat suspected by the Shabak in espionage. According to the Shabak, his predecessor in the post of the First Secretary of the Russian embassy Andrey Mochalov was a Russian spy who worked in Israel under diplomatic cover. Due to Shabak’ s insistance he was withdrawn back to Moscow in 2004.

The 53-year-old Krykov studied Hebrew in the Institute of Asia and Africa Studies (IAAS) of the Moscow State University. One of Kryukov’s fellow students was Alexander Lomov, who headed a network of the KGB in Israel and run away to the US with his wife as a result of a joint operation of Mossad and the CIA, having given out many Soviet agents who operated in Israel. Kryukov used to come to Israel annually even before restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It was done within the framework of delegations of the Soviet-Israeli friendship society according to an invitation of the Communist Party of Israel. Later, under the request of the Jewish Agency (Sohnut), he read lectures to the future repatriates, and now he is actively cooperating with the Centre of the Israeli culture in Moscow, and is involved in the activities of the Bureau on communications with Jewry of the CIS and Baltic countries (Nativ).

Kryukov in 1980 graduated from the Institute of Asia and Africa of the Moscow State University, and his group was the first in the history of the Moscow State University that studied Hebrew as the main Oriental language. 10 years he worked at the Institute of Sociological Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he studied mass media of Israel. Last 15 years he taught at the Institute of Asia and Africa of the Moscow State University.

AIA also reports:

A new US citizen, Oleg Kalugin, who served 32 years with the KGB, visited a counterterrorism class at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville last month to talk about the KGB's use of terrorist groups and aspects of his former work, Loudoun Times-Mirror writes. Anonymous letters and death threats still find their way into the now-peaceful suburban life of Kalugin, 72. He told the class that “they still continue to kill political opponents." The former Soviet intelligence general added, "I send whatever I get to the FBI, so they can be aware that there is a threat on my life." Kalugin completed six years of counterintelligence and foreign language training in Russia, then entered the United States in 1958 at age 24, posing as a journalism exchange student at Columbia University. During the next 12 years, he made two more visits to the United States, first undercover as a Moscow radio correspondent for the United Nations, and as a deputy press officer for the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. In the early 1970s, Kalugin was recalled to Moscow and appointed general, becoming the youngest man to hold the title in KGB history. Soon after, he became head of the agency's foreign counterintelligence. As Kalugin settled into Russian life, however, his perspectives on the Soviet regime began to shift, Loudoun Times-Mirror marks. Kalugin grew more critical of KGB operations and policies, and was demoted to first deputy chief of internal security in 1980. In 1987, he was formally dismissed from the KGB. Despite opposition from political opponents and the KGB, Kalugin was elected to the Soviet Parliament that same year. 1995, Kalugin accepted a teaching position at Catholic University in Washington D.C., and has not returned to his homeland. 2002, the Moscow City Court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years of imprisonment for high treason. Kalugin currently lives in the Washington, D.C.,suburbs, and conducts classes and lectures across the United States.