Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times:

Things have not been going so well for our siloviki. The BBC ran an interview on July 7 with an anonymous high-ranking agent of Britain's MI5 counterespionage unit who declared that Russian authorities were behind the poisoning death in London of former Federal Secret Service agent Alexander Litvinenko.

The declaration will probably lead to a new wave of angry recriminations against foreigners, and many will be asking why this unidentified MI5 agent made these accusations during a popular BBC program. But the answer to that question is simple, albeit unpleasant, for the Kremlin: to support and defend the rule of law. In normal countries, people are not usually poisoned with polonium-210 in the heart of a major world capital, with the murderers walking away scot-free.

In another case, British spymaster Alex Allen, who is also chairman of the country's Joint Intelligence Committee, was found in a coma in his London apartment two weeks ago. British newspapers speculated that al-Qaida or the Russian secret service might be responsible for his condition.

To be honest, I don't think Russian agents could have pulled off such a major feat. They are limited to more modest and blunt operations, like blowing up a bus in Nalchik or a market in Sukhumi. But Alex Allen? Don't make me laugh. This is nonsense. An agency more accustomed to shooting down unarmed people in Nazran and then photographing the bodies with planted weapons in their hands is hardly qualified to orchestrate a sophisticated operation against an ace agent like Allen.

At the same time as these events were unfolding, the London court agreed to hear the claims of businessman Michael Cherney against oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Cherney accused Deripaska, his former business partner, of failing to pay the full price for his shares in Russian Aluminum.

I don't want to guess the outcome, but I think Cherney's claims aren't worth the paper they were written on. Cherney's industrial empire, in which Deripaska once participated, was built upon extremely informal connections between the various players. The ownership documents Cherney has in his possession, and which both he and Deripaska have signed, are quite typical for such shady transactions -- that is, they might carry some validity in the criminal world, but not in a British court of law. Nonetheless, the British court agreed to hear Cherney's case on the rationale that he was unable to obtain justice in Russia. It is truly a sad testament to the current state of affairs when a London court considers Russia's reputation as being worse than Cherney's.

They say that it takes the first half of your life to build your reputation, but during the second half, your reputation then works for you -- or against you, as the case may be. Cesare Borgia, the 15th-century Italian military commander, probably did not sleep with his sister, as has been claimed. He just sent killers to knock off her husband, and when they failed in the first attempt, Borgia ordered them to go back and try again. The second time, however, they finished off the wounded man in his bedroom, in front of Borgia's sister. Objectively speaking, Borgia was an excellent commander and a brilliant statesman, and it is unlikely that he was responsible for half of the killings attributed to him. Nonetheless, he has been stuck with a largely negative reputation.

Before Litvinenko's poisoning death, Russia had one reputation, but now it has a different one. That new reputation won't change until the murder case is investigated and brought to its full conclusion -- and until murder suspect and State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi gives an honest deposition instead of giving self-promoting news conferences and television interviews.

In democracies, there are certain things that should never be bargained away or swept under the carpet. Murder is one of them.

Sweden has joined the cold war against Russia, The Local reports:

Sweden's new surveillance law will enable the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to scan massive quantities of Russian computer and telecom data, Svenska Dagbladet reports.

Information gleaned by the signal intelligence agency can then be used as currency when trading data with other western countries. Despite the headaches the bill has caused since entering parliament in 2007, the government has never revealed the true purpose of the law, SvD writes. Several sources close to the Swedish intelligence community told the newspaper that the controversial new eavesdropping law was primarily intended to keep track of Russian communications.

"Our geographical position means that 80 percent of Russia's contacts with large parts of the world travel through cables in Sweden. That is the core of the issue," said one source. "The most important reason for the law is that the government, the Armed Forces and other agencies need intelligence about Russia." But neither former Prime Minister Göran Persson nor his successor Fredrik Reinfeldt have mentioned Sweden's desire to listen in on the neighbours.

FRA in its turn has wanted to keep its intentions quiet for as long as possible to prevent Russia from rerouting its computer and telecommunications systems. Swedish-Finnish telecom giant TeliaSonera owns one of the world's largest fiber-optic cable networks, and company maps confirm that the vast majority of all cable traffic to and from Russia crosses Sweden's borders, SvD reports.

All Russian email and telephone calls, for example, pass through Sweden, regardless of whether the recipient is located in Berlin, Hong Kong, Kiev or New York. And 85 percent of Europe's broadband customers are connected in some way to TeliaSonera's network. The new surveillance law will require all Swedish telecom operators to store any communications passing Swedish borders and make them available for FRA's perusal at collection nodes located at various points around the country.

TeliaSonera said it was currently considering ways to circumvent Sweden. "Our aim is for international traffic and transit traffic to bypass Sweden," Malin Frenning, CEO of TeliaSonera International Carrier, told SvD. But to construct a new network outside of Sweden would cost the company a lot of time and money. And there is also a risk that communications would then pass through other countries that have created laws similar to Sweden's, such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Wired reports:

Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.

Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.

Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The Russians want to sell weapons to Iraq directly, but "must go slow on Iraq because of political reasons" and want to work with an "intermediary" like Defense Solutions, CEO Ringgold subsequently wrote to colleagues. "They have not spoken with any American company that can offer the quid pro quo that we can or that has the connections in Russia that we have," he boasted.

A few years ago, an American company proposing to sell weapons to Libya might have triggered a congressional hearing. So, too, would have a proposal to conduct arms deals with Russia, which the United States has accused of selling high-tech weapons to Syria and Iran.

However, U.S. government efforts to rapidly equip countries like Afghanistan and Iraq -- which have largely Soviet-origin weapons -- have created legal ambiguities and loopholes in export controls that didn't exist in years past and given rise to a new class of arms trade middlemen. So, even though both Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on official U.S. blacklists, government officials and analysts involved in weapons sales say the rules have become unclear as the push to equip allies in the global war on terror has blazed new but uncertain legal ground.

Eagerly stepping into that virgin territory is Defense Solutions, a Pennsylvania-based company that is carving out a small but lucrative niche in a new international arms bazaar. The firm boasts as its advisors a number of influential Washington insiders, such as retired General Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar.

Helping the firm make key connections is Curt Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania at the center of an FBI investigation into alleged conflicts of interest during his time in office. Weldon, now a key executive at Defense Solutions, is working with the company to set up these weapons deals.

It's an unusual, if not an entirely unexpected chapter for Weldon, whose time in office included frequent trips to Russia. As an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon pushed for multibillion-dollar defense programs, like ballistic missile defense, and earned a reputation as a foreign policy gadfly, boasting of his contacts with officials in nations labeled by the administration as "rogue states" such as Libya and North Korea. Weldon's wild claims about a 9/11 cover-up and his sensationalist book warning of an Iranian terror plot, sometimes earned him official scorn and public ridicule, but it was accusations that he steered contracts to Eastern European businesses linked to his daughter's lobbying firm that drew the government's attention.

Weldon was voted out of office in 2006 just weeks after the FBI raided his daughter's home, and that of one of her associates.

Weldon did not respond to e-mails and phone requests to be interviewed or comment for this article. But in a 2006 interview, before the FBI probe was public, Weldon spoke enthusiastically about setting up a "front company" to work with the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport. Weldon hoped this company could sell weapons to the Middle East, and other regions, particularly to countries where the U.S. has strained relations. He claimed the director of Rosoboronexport approached him to work with "an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy."

Weldon called the proposal an "unbelievable offer."

The administration, he acknowledged at the time, did not welcome the idea of an American company selling Russian weapons to potentially unfriendly countries. But two years later, Weldon, now a private citizen and chief strategic officer for Defense Solutions, appears to be working on precisely that sort of deal. And whether illegal or not, Defense Solutions' business represents a new phenomenon in the international arms trade business.

In years past arms brokers -- firms or individuals who serve as middlemen to facilitate weapons sales between countries -- were largely the stuff of spy thrillers. Unlike traditional American defense companies, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, which typically sell weapons directly to NATO countries or other governments regarded as friendly to the United States, brokers are often small outfits run by people with sometimes questionable experience and reputations they will sell to anyone. One of the most infamous arms brokers, a Russian named Viktor Bout, is charged by the United States, United Nations, Interpol and others of funneling arms to terrorists and rebels around the world. He was recently arrested in Thailand. The United States is requesting his extradition on charges of supplying arms to a terrorist organization.

But ironically, Iraq has fueled a new market for these professional middlemen; the United States is funneling billions of dollars into modernizing Iraq's army so that the country's government can fend for itself after coalition troops withdraw. And Iraq's largely Soviet-equipped military is a natural market for Eastern European countries brimming with old or out-of-date equipment they would like to unload. The middlemen, in these cases, serve a key role by allowing the U.S. government to do business with an American company, which in turn buys equipment from Eastern Bloc countries in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

One of Defense Solutions' sales -- a deal to sell Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005 -- was typical of these new foreign military sales. But on the more questionable side is the company's plans to work with Rosoboronexport, which is barred from doing business with the U.S. government, and Libya, which is still on the State Department's arms embargo list.

The Eastern European-Middle East arms-brokering business, while in some cases sanctioned by the U.S. government, has run into problems, including outright corruption and quality. Defense contractor Dale Stoffel, the president of Wye Oak Technology, and another American were gunned down in Iraq in December 2004 after Stoffel alleged that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense was involved in a kickback scheme. Like Defense Solutions, the company Stoffel worked for was refurbishing the Iraq's army Eastern Bloc equipment.

Another problem is quality. Weapons from the former Soviet Bloc, which the U.S. military euphemistically calls "nonstandard equipment," have been flagged as substandard, acknowledges Brigadier General Charles Luckey, who is in charge of security assistance at Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. In an interview from Iraq, Brigadier General Luckey said: "One of the frustrating things about buying nonstandard [weapons], is that I'm the guy who has to deal with the fact that some broker I've never heard of allowed weapons to get to Iraq before they were inspected."

In one high-profile case, Iraqi officials alleged that a corrupt firm sold them $400 million in shoddy helicopters from Poland. More recently, a company led by a 21-year-old and a former masseur was offered a U.S. government contract worth nearly $300 million to sell ammunition to Afghanistan. The ammunition turned out to be outdated and of dubious origin and several people connected with the company have been indicted. A congressional investigation concluded that the company, which was on a State Department watch list, was able to take advantage of regulatory loopholes by using middlemen.

For those concerned about illicit arms trade, this new wave of weapons deals is rife with the potential for corruption and abuse, but for companies eager to pursue markets once regarded as dubious, it represents a lucrative business opportunity. The problem in these cases, according to those familiar with arms sales, is that it's no longer clear what's legal and what's not.

Rachel Stohl, an expert on international arms trade and a senior analyst at Center for Defense Information, says that in many ways, the rush to equip Iraq has led the United States to throw caution to the wind. She points to a report by the Government Accountability Office last year that found that some 190,000 weapons sold to Iraq have gone missing. "I think the reality is we won't know, until way after the fact, about all of these irregularities with the Iraq weapons provision program," she said. "We were providing them all these assault rifles that have gone missing. Why? They were not following the standard procedures that were in place."

But Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the only markets available to arms brokers like Defense Solutions. The gradual normalization of relations with Libya opens another door into a quasi-legal area of sales.

Like Iraq, Libya has a substantial arsenal of Soviet-origin military weapons, offering a potential market for brokers working with Russia and other former Soviet states. But even when there's not an outright ban, sales to the Middle East are often fraught with controversy, particularly to countries like Libya, which was under international sanction for more than a decade. Even as sanctions against it have been lifted, European companies proposing to sell arms to Libya have faced steep criticism, particularly since the country is still ruled by dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969.

While the United States lifted Libya's "state sponsor of terrorism" designation in 2006, other restrictions, such as on the sale of arms, remain in place. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that exports of "lethal munitions" to Libya, such as tanks or related equipment, are still banned, although sales of nonlethal equipment are now allowed on a case-by-case basis.

In late March, Weldon traveled to Libya for a weeklong trip at the invitation of the Gaddafi Foundation, a group run by the son of Libya's leader, and the chairman of Libya's foreign affairs committee, according to the report he sent to Defense Solutions (.pdf), a copy of which was obtained by Wired.com. The trip reports states: "Agreement reached for Weldon to quickly return to Libya for meetings with son [of Libyan leader Gaddafi] Morti regarding defense and security cooperation."

A document dated April 16, just two weeks after Weldon's trip, outlines Defense Solutions' proposal to Libya to refurbish the country's fleet of armored vehicles, including its T-72 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. A copy of the sales proposal, also provided to Wired.com, is on Defense Solutions' letterhead, appears to bear the signature of company CEO Timothy Ringgold, and is addressed to Libya's defense procurement council. "Defense Solutions is committed to delivering a full end-to-end solution to its clients," the proposal states. "Besides refurbishing these vehicles, we are capable of providing a full logistics support package, including a two year supply of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, and operator, maintenance, and repair training."

In an interview with Wired.com, Ringgold admitted that he's interested in doing business in Libya and confirms receiving Weldon's trip report from Libya, but denies drafting or signing an arms-sale proposal. "I've never made such a document to Libya," Ringgold insisted, after being read the proposal, and told that his signature is on it.

In addition to the Libyan arms-deal document, Wired.com has also reviewed copies of e-mails from Ringgold discussing the Libyan deal.

While Ringgold denies proposing an arms sale to Libya, he is open about speaking with Rosoboronexport, which has been on a U.S. government sanctions list since 2006, after the Russian state agency allegedly violated the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. An April e-mail provided to Wired.com describes Ringgold, Weldon and Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions and a former ambassador, meeting with Rosoboronexport. The conversations included a number of potential deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan and spare parts for Iraq's infantry fighting vehicles. Ringgold wrote to colleagues following the visit, describing the meetings as a "spectacular success," saying the Russian agency "has the ability to undercut all cost proposals from brokers."

Ringgold confirmed those discussions and said that his company has sought to do business with Rosoboronexport. Asked whether Ringgold considers his dealings with Russia to be legal, he argued that U.S. companies could work with Rosoboronexport on a "case-by-case" basis. "The particular purpose of the meeting we had -- and I want to be crystal clear -- was in response to a U.S. government requirement," he said.

A number of officials at the State Department and in the Pentagon, when contacted for this article, could not say whether working with Rosoboronexport is legal or not. A Pentagon spokeswoman said she was familiar with the issue, but deferred the question to the State Department. When asked about Rosoboronexport's status on the blacklist, John Herzberg, a State Department spokesman replied: "What's on there is on there."

Asked whether, given the ban, there was any way a company could legally work with Rosoboronexport, as Ringgold suggested, Herzberg provided an equivocal answer. "At the stage of the process we're at, I'm unable to give you an answer," he said. "You can try elsewhere in government, and maybe they'll be braver than me."

In an interview from Iraq, General Luckey conceded it was a murky area, but said, "My understanding is they are currently on our no-go list."

The confusion over debarred parties has even led the U.S. government into its own legal tangles, according to Jim McAleese, a Washington attorney who specializes in government contracting and foreign military sales. Because the Russian government violated U.S. nonproliferation laws, even NASA had to go to Congress to ensure it could work with Russia on Soyuz flights to the international space station. "What I'm warning you about is, don't be surprised by the confusion," McAleese said. "There are a whole bunch of different statutes that were adopted piecemeal and were never intended to be reconciled."

But it's the very ambiguity of the law that troubles those who monitor export control. "It's highly unusual to do anything with the Russians, particularly Rosoboronexport," said Scott Jones, director of Export Control Programs at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.

Legal or not, reputable American companies simply don't want to work with banned entities, Jones said, for fear of risking their reputations and business. "Even if it's not an outright prohibition, most companies don't want to put themselves in a liability situation that has really bad PR … and they stay away from it," Jones said. "But if that's your business, pimping out arms from the U.S. or Russia, that's the way it works, and you push as much as possible."

Finding any U.S. defense company working with the Russian government at this point would be "remarkable," Jones added.

In the meantime, the future for Weldon is unclear. The FBI investigation continues and Weldon's former chief of staff recently pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and is cooperating with the government, notes Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed a complaint against Weldon in 2004. Sloan speculated that Weldon may be charged with "honest service fraud" for misusing his office for personal gain. "It's an easier standard than bribery," she said. "I wouldn't be surprised [if he's charged] with bribery, but I think it will be honest services fraud."

Ringgold insists that he and Weldon are on the right side of the law. "Everything we do is in strict compliance with international and U.S. law and we operate only in the best interests of the U.S. government," he said. "I didn't serve 30 years in the United States Army to throw that away on a whim."

Asked if Weldon is still working for the company, Ringgold replied: "Absolutely, proudly so."

Other Russia reports:

Draft legislation introduced into the Russian Parliament could give the country’s security services the right to listen in on mobile telephone calls. As the state-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on May 20th, the legislation would also allow security service, militsiya and customs agency officers to ask service providers to cut the line of communication if there is a danger to the life or health of a citizen. The line may also be disconnected in cases where the state, military, economic or ecological safety of the country is threatened.

Beyond that, agencies leading an investigation will have the right to ask mobile telephony providers for information on their users, including their IMEI numbers, an identity feature built into every mobile device.

The bill was introduced to Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, and would need to clear three readings before heading to the Federation Council, the upper house, and ultimately the president’s desk.

A similar bill was put forth in the legislature of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. Authorities there said the draft law is “aimed at lowering the number of crimes connected with stolen instruments of cellular communication.”

At the present, mobile telephone providers have the option to refuse requests from the security services, and may decide whether to cooperate on a case by case basis. If the company denies a request, officials are forced to go through the judicial system and appeal before obtaining records or listening in on conversations.

The Globalist reviews the KGBification of Russia:

From former Communist Party Secretary General Yuri Andropov to former Russian President Vladmir Putin, the KGB has shaped the course of Russian politics for the last three decades. Andropov hoped to achieve substantive reforms to save the hemoraging Soviet Union. But Putin and his former KGB brethren — many of whom got to occupy high places in Russian government and industry during his presidency — seem to desire only wealth and political power.

In the waning years of Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, which encompassed a period from 1964 to 1982 and entered Russian history as a period of stagnation, then-KGB chief Yuri Andropov was thought to be the most cultured and open-minded member of the ruling Politburo. This may seem ironic, because as a Soviet secret police boss, he was in charge of spying on the West, fomenting unrest in the developing world and suppressing domestic dissent. He did it all well. Abroad, the late 1970s were characterized by seemingly unstoppable gains for the Soviet Union and its allies, from Nicaragua and Grenada in the Western Hemisphere to Angola and Ethiopia in Africa — and Indo-China and Afghanistan in Asia.

Previously non-allied nations and Western clients were one by one falling into the Soviet orbit. At home, meanwhile, the dissident movement that flourished in the 1960s and early 1970s was ruthlessly rooted out.

Soviet dominance?

Because he was required to achieve real results, Andropov had to gain thorough knowledge of reality — not live in a dream world of Leninist ideology as his Kremlin colleagues did. What he saw horrified him. He realized that the Soviet Union, behind a façade of unity and strength, was a ramshackle collection of often medieval, grotesquely inefficient and incompatible parts. Its technology, social and economic infrastructure and economic efficiency lagged far behind the United States and Western Europe.

Soviet decline

Whatever achievements were seen immediately after World War II had mostly disintegrated and, unbeknownst to the senile old men living behind the Kremlin wall, the USSR was becoming a third world nation. Andropov was a highly educated, cultured man who was tough, but well-read. He reportedly enjoyed reading some of the very same dissident Russian writers his KGB had banned from publishing. He understood that, unless major reforms were implemented, the Communist system was doomed. The problem was Brezhnev — who kept on living. By the time the Great Leader finally died in 1982 at the age of 75, Andropov was mortally ill himself. Despite being only 70, a relative youngster by the standards of the 1980's Soviet Politburo, Andropov died of kidney failure in February 1984 — only 16 months after succeeding Brezhnev as Secretary General of the Communist Party. Few Russians who lived through those 16 months have anything nice to say about Andropov. The first thing he did was tighten discipline at the workplace.

Return to party discipline

He clamped down on absenteeism — by sending police officers and volunteer vigilantes to stores during working hours, with orders to stop working-age shoppers and demand why they were not at work. Other harsh measures, reminiscent of Lenin's murderous War Communism during the Russian Civil war in 1918-1920, were also introduced. But in hindsight, it seems that Andropov was merely working to establish impeccable Bolshevik credentials before embarking on a path of reform.

Nixonian reformer?

Richard Nixon may have served as a template. He came to power as the standard-bearer of the American Right, then initiated détente with Russia and China and ended the war in Vietnam — something no liberal Democrat would have ever been able to do. The problem with Andropov was that he died before the reform stage could begin. However, he had enough time to promote and bolster one of his most talented protégés — Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev, it should be noted, came from Stavropol, Andropov's power base, and he consistently enjoyed the KGB chief's patronage since joining the Politburo in 1979. When they first began in 1985, Gorbachev's perestroika, glasnost and other reforms were the same package that had been conceived at the KGB headquarters on the Lubyanka Square during the time of Andropov.

Overdue reforms

Like his late patron, Gorbachev intended to keep the fundamentals of the Communist system in place — but loosen some of the most hide-bound economic and political restrictions that prevented the USSR from competing efficiently on the global stage. The problem was that even Andropov and his KGB did not appreciate how thoroughly the entire Soviet system had rotted through. Like a dead tree in the woods, it could remain upright as long as no one touched it. Any attempt to adjust it resulted in an immediate, clamorous collapse.

Collapse

Communist Party reformers, starting with Gorbachev himself, were caught offguard by the ignominious disintegration of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Andropov had to gain thorough knowledge of reality — not live in the Kremlin’s dream world of Leninist ideology. What he saw horrified him. So was the KGB. Its officers — who had been the true masters of the country for 80 years — found themselves out of work. Under Boris Yeltsin, the power of the secret police — now renamed the Federal Security Service, or the FSB — was curbed substantially, its ranks thinned out and its bloody archives were thrown open to historians.

Many former KGB officers employed their skills by working for the newly rich oligarchs, or for organized crime conglomerates. Even Putin had to go to work as a factotum for St. Petersburg's reformist mayor Anatoly Sobchak. Initially, when Putin unexpectedly became Russia's leader, he too seemed to be following in Andropov's footsteps. He talked of boosting discipline at all levels of government, administrative reform and greater openness to the rest of the world. He appeared to be moving slowly in practice, but that seemed justified. After all, to cite Otto von Bismarck, isn't politics in a democratic state "the art of the possible?" The important thing was that he seemed to be moving in the right direction.

The rise of Putin

However, Putin's rise was a combination of wild luck — his own — and monumental stupidity and overconfidence — that of those rich Russian oligarchs who picked him to succeed Boris Yeltsin in 1999. Putin’s rise was a combination of wild luck — his own — and monumental stupidity and overconfidence — that of those rich Russian oligarchs who picked him to succeed Boris Yeltsin.
The oligarchs thought they controlled Russia and couldn't conceive that this uncomplicated, unambitious and seemingly unconnected guy could turn the tables on them. Especially since all the political infrastructure around him remained in their hands. But they failed to take two facts into consideration. First, Putin did have at least some connections in the KGB establishment and, second, the Russian state — although greatly weakened after the collapse of the Soviet Union — was still a formidable force.

Putin's old colleagues in St. Petersburg did what other KGB officers were doing after the fall of the Soviet Union — find jobs in the nascent private enterprises. The main difference was that in Russia's second-largest city, working for private businesses often meant becoming involved with a highly diversified and powerful private enterprise-gangster network. It is not for nothing that St. Petersburg has been nicknamed Russia's "Crime Capital."

The KGB's "old boy network"

Most prominent members of Putin's administration, as well as those who head powerful "silovik" ministries and agencies and run the increasingly dominant, state-owned energy and natural resource enterprises, were mainly St. Petersburg law and order alumni and personal acquaintances of the president from his former life. Even Andropov and his KGB did not appreciate how thoroughly the entire Soviet system had rotted through The quiescent early years of Putin's rule were merely a time when those people moved into the position of power, took over the Russian state — and gathered strength. In the end, the KGB — which initiated the process of reforming the tottering Soviet Union — has ended up on top. Those who were junior officers when the reform project was conceived now run Russia and its energy monopolies.

Era of corruption

The difference is that Andropov, for all his faults, was trying to make the country better. In contrast, too many of his former employees — for all their talk about addressing Russia's monumental social, environmental, health and other problems — think primarily of stuffing their own pockets and staying in power. Government graft, bribery and corruption, which has always been a problem in Russia, has now probably surpassed Nigerian proportions.

J.R. Nyquist reviews Comrade J by Peter Earley:

At the end of Pete Earley’s book, Comrade J, Russian master spy Sergei Tretyakov tells why he defected to the United States seven years ago. It had to do with his “growing disgust and contempt for what has happened and is happening in Russia.” According to Tretyakov, he and his wife were not naïve about the “immorality, cruelty, repression, and ineffectiveness” of the former Soviet regime. “Yet it was our motherland,” he said, “which, like your parents, you cannot choose.” He was hopeful when Gorbachev arrived on the scene. “I believed that Gorbachev would start a new era of democratization in the Soviet Union.” The outcome of Gorbachev’s reforms, however, was hardly encouraging. “The economy collapsed, and people became desperate and miserable,” Tretyakov explained. “Since then Russia has been repeatedly raped and looted by its leadership. I call this process GENOCIDE of the Russian people performed by a group of immoral criminals.”

In this column I often attempt to describe the dangerous thugs who dominate Russia. In response I regularly receive outraged emails. Why should I write about corruption and tyranny in Russia when the real corruption and tyranny is here in the United States? It is hard to argue with ignorance, especially when that ignorance is bolstered by ideological presumption. No country is perfect, to be sure; but let us consider the testimony of someone who knows both Russia and America. Sergei Tretyakov was a Russian master spy who spent many years in New York. He is in a better position to judge which country is free, and which is governed by criminals who ruthless exploit the people.

“I want my new compatriots to know who and what I am, and why I am in this country,” wrote Tretyakov. “Speaking out enables me to give my qualifications, and after giving them, I can sound an alarm.” According to Tretyakov Americans think the Kremlin is an ally, a friend. “In speaking out,” he wrote, “I hope to expose how naïve this is.” Since he and his family have become American citizens, Tretyakov said he has been offended by natural-born Americans who take their liberties for granted. He wrote: “Sometimes I believe only someone who has lived in a corrupt society can truly understand the importance of America’s liberties. I find this frustrating.”

I had an opportunity to talk last Wednesday night with a courageous man from Russia, Dr. Andrei Illarionov, who previously served as Vladimir Putin’s senior economic advisor. In December 2005 Illarionov surprised the world by stating, at a press conference, that Russia “is no longer a democratic country. It is no longer a free country.” Needless to say, Illarionov left the Kremlin. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. He told me that the problem with Russia was not the imposition of a new system of strict authoritarian rules. “The most important element in this new system,” he explained, “is the absence of the rule of law.”

The old totalitarianism in Russia was, as George Orwell described it, “a lawless order.” The new totalitarianism is a lawless disorder. “In the case of modern Russia,” Illarionov explained, “there is no rule of law and no rule of man. In Russia it is the rule of thugs. It is not the rule of one person…. It is rule by people who in most civilized countries would be [in jail].”

During the past century Russia has not developed a solid, civil society. It has descended from tsarism to Stalinism down to a regime of competing thugs. Before coming to power Stalin robbed banks. He was a Georgian thug who stole power. His example was contagious, spreading throughout Russia like a plague. “Socialism was not a great system,” Illarionov said. “It was a dictatorship. It was a terrorist type system.” The men at the top were thugs, perhaps, but there were rules. “As long as you followed those rules you had a high level of safety,” Illarionov added. “Today nobody knows the rules.”

Yet there is a rule, if you can call it a rule: The Kremlin regularly seizes control of companies that are making the most money simply because they are cash cows – ready to be milked. “The criteria,” said Illarionov, “is to take companies that can generate cash.” He further explained: If society develops from nomadic banditry to stationary banditry to a civilized state, then Russia is going backwards.

“In Russia,” said Illarionov, “we see an enormous destruction of civil society, but sometimes we see very impressive economic growth. We see one of the fastest growing economies in the world.” According to the best theories of political and economic science this shouldn’t be happening. “So we have to ask if some new law, new pattern, is observable in Russia.”

Andrei Illarionov is a brave man, and so is Sergei Tretyakov. Both these men are trying to warn us about the same thing. History teaches that rulers who rob and butcher their own citizens will not hesitate to bomb and invade their neighbors. It must be remembered that the thugs in the Kremlin have thermonuclear weapons. They are improving these weapons, day by day. They arm terrorists throughout the world. They are supporting North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. And here is what I find most disturbing. Illarionov pointed out that “George Bush sees Vladimir Putin as his personal friend.”

This is a mystery, and Dr. Illarionov has no “good explanation for why it is so.” It is normal for Western governments to isolate gangster regimes. But the Kremlin has not been isolated. The Kremlin has murdered or poisoned various Russian and Ukrainian politicians. The facts are widely known. “Anyone who would behave remotely similar would be immediately isolated,” said Illarionov. But Russia has not been isolated.

“It is something really special,” Illarionov conceded. Russia is growing economically while breaking free of the pattern of civilized life. This is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. It creates a psychological feeling within Russia, a sense of superiority. “All those people believe they have found a way to make a successful political system,” Illarionov warned. It makes violence and banditry seem like a workable alternative to civilization. People begin to believe that banditry has a future. Why not become a looter? Why not follow the bandit’s example?

From all of this we learn that the struggle for freedom is also a struggle for law and order. It is also a struggle against moral nihilism. Civilization exists because of standards. These standards refer to “right” and “wrong.” If there is no objective right and wrong, recognized as a basis for the rule of law, civilized society cannot long endure.

The Canadian Free Press reports:

In what could be the biggest State Department scandal since State Department official and United Nations founder Alger Hiss was exposed as a Soviet spy, a top Clinton State Department official and former Time magazine journalist has been identified as having been a trusted contact of the Russian intelligence service.

The sensational charge against Strobe Talbott is made in a new book based on interviews with a Russian defector. The book, Comrade J, by veteran author and reporter Pete Earley, identifies Talbott as having been manipulated by a Russian official working for Russian intelligence in order to get information about U.S. foreign policy. The same book describes the United Nations as a major base of espionage operations for Russia in the U.S.

But the story gets much more scandalous than that because Talbott himself has just written a book, The Great Experiment, describing his own background in the pro-world government World Federalist Movement and naming a network of friends and close associates that includes former President Bill Clinton and billionaire leftist George Soros. Curiously, the book calls for expanding the authority of the U.N. but completely ignores the role of Soviet spy Alger Hiss, himself a top State Department official, in founding the United Nations.

The purpose of Talbott’s book is to promote “global governance,” a euphemism for world government. It is defined in the subtitle as “The Quest for a Global Nation.”

Interestingly, one of Talbott’s closest friends in the U.S. Senate, Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana, has emerged as a foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. In 2005, Lugar and Obama made a visit to Russia to promote the scandal-ridden “Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR),” also known as the Nunn-Lugar program for its original Senate sponsors. The CTR has poured about $6 billion into the former Soviet Union in foreign aid, supposedly for the purpose of preventing nuclear proliferation.

“After actively promoting Nunn-Lugar while at Time [magazine], Talbott was put in charge of the [CTR] program when named by Clinton as ambassador at large to Russia and the newly independent states in February 1993,” notes journalist Ken Timmerman, in a report headlined, “Strobe Talbott: Russia’s Man in Washington.”

Although Talbott has been identified in press accounts as a current adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, he showed up to hear Senator Barack Obama deliver a foreign policy address in 2005 to the Council on Foreign Relations and declared, “It was very impressive.” A story about the speech carried by MSNBC and published on Obama’s Senate website noted that Lugar was “helping” Obama in the foreign policy field, that Obama and Lugar “have formed a political joint venture and mutual admiration society,” and that they had traveled to Russia together. The trip to Russia was designed to ensure Obama’s support for maintaining and even expanding the foreign aid for Russia through the CTR program.

Although CTR supporters claim it can be effective in keeping nuclear weapons or materials out of the hands of terrorists, various reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveal that funds have been used mainly to destroy obsolete weapons that Moscow was going to replace with high-tech arms. The International Proliferation Prevention Program, which has evolved from the CTR, was recently exposed by the GAO as a jobs program for Russian scientists, more than half of which may not have any weapons-related experience.

Nevertheless, Obama said that “few people” understand Russia better than Lugar, a “rock star” on the world stage. Lugar, in turn, calls Strobe Talbott a “good friend” and “source of sound counsel” who “continues to provide outstanding national and international leadership.” Comrade J is about a Russian master spy, Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States because he was disgusted with the Russian/Soviet system and wanted to start a new and better life with his family in America. His allegations about Talbott have been ignored by most of the media.

Tretyakov is described as the highest ranking Russian intelligence official ever to defect while stationed in the U.S. and handled all Russian intelligence operations against the U.S. He served under cover from 1995-2000 at Russia’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations but was secretly working for the FBI for at least three years.

Talbott has been and continues to be a major foreign policy thinker. Back in 2000, when he was named head of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, he was described as “a key architect of U.S. foreign policy” during the Clinton years. Talbott now serves as president of the liberal think tank, the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C., where he gets paid over $400,000 a year, leads a staff of 277 and presides over an endowment of over $200 million.

Talbott denies Tretyakov’s charges, calling them “erroneous and/or misleading,” and his denials are featured on page 184 of the book. He says that he always promoted U.S. foreign policy goals and that the close relationship that he had with a top Russian official by the name of Georgi Mamedov did not involve any manipulation or deception. This is not the first time that Talbott has come under scrutiny for his alleged contacts with agents of a foreign intelligence service. In 1994, when he was being considered for his State Department post in the Clinton Administration, he was grilled by Senator Jesse Helms, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, about his relationship with Victor Louis, a Soviet “journalist” who was actually a Soviet KGB intelligence agent. Talbott had been a young correspondent for Time magazine in Moscow.

As reported by Herbert Romerstein in Human Events newspaper, Talbott admitted knowing Louis from 1969 until his death in 1992 but that he was not aware of his “organizational affiliations.” Pressed further, Talbott acknowledged that he was aware of assertions or speculation to that effect about Louis. Helms then confronted Talbott with a 1986 State Department publication revealing that Louis had been identified as a KGB agent by KGB defectors and had been used by the Soviets to spread disinformation. Talbott said he still didn’t know for sure that Louis was a KGB agent. Romerstein’s Human Events article accused Talbott of writing articles following the Soviet line.

However, Talbott had powerful friends, including Senator and fellow Rhodes Scholar Richard Lugar, who supported his nomination.

Romerstein, a retired government expert on anti-American and communist propaganda activities, said the Earley book is valuable because it documents that the Russian intelligence service picked up where the KGB left off, and that operations against the U.S. continued after the end of the Cold War.

But he said the information about Talbott needs further explanation from Talbott himself. “Talbott really has to explain more than he did to Pete Earley what his relationship was to Mamedov, and he should tell us about his relationship with Victor Louis,” Romerstein said.
On January 4, Talbott gave a talk at the “Politics & Prose” bookstore in Washington, D.C., where he explained in precise detail what he means by “global governance.” He said that it “allows for a multiplicity of governments [or] nation states in the world but at the same time depends increasingly on an international system made up of up treaties, international law, institutions, and various arrangements whereby nations in effect pool their national authority in order to deal with certain problems that they cannot deal with all by themselves and they can’t deal with in small numbers.”

Talbott added, “That is the big idea that the book attempts to describe and trace. And it’s not just a utopian dream. Global governance is a reality. We have it today.”

In the future, Talbott says the U.N. will need to be “incorporated into an increasingly variegated network of structures and arrangements, some functional in focus, others geographic; some intergovernmental, others based on systematic collaboration with the private sector, civil society, and NGOs [non-governmental organizations]. Only if the larger enterprise of global governance has that kind of breadth and depth will it be able to supplement what the U.N. does well, compensate for what it does badly, and provide capabilities that it lacks.”

In 1993, when Talbott was nominated by President Clinton as Ambassador at Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the new Independent States (of the former Soviet Union), Senator John McCain took to the Senate floor to declare that, despite Talbott being a close friend and personal pick of the President’s, “I cannot in good conscience vote to confirm his appointment.”

McCain said that Talbott, as a writer for Time magazine and a commentator, had been guilty of making “mistaken observations” and suggesting “flawed policy solutions” on the matter of whether Russia “will evolve peacefully and democratically, collapse into chaos, or return to totalitarianism, be it Communist or fascist.”

McCain noted that Talbott opposed all of the Reagan initiatives, including deployment of missiles to Europe and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which had kept Europe free from Soviet control and eventually resulted in the demise of the Soviet empire. McCain said that “it would require many more hours for me to cite all the examples of mistakes and inconsistencies upon which Mr. Talbott bases his reputation as a Soviet expert.”

However, on April 2, 1993, Talbott was confirmed by the Senate to this post by a Yea-Nay Vote of 89-9. One of his leading Senate backers was Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The nine voting against Talbott were Craig (R-ID), Faircloth (R-NC), Gorton (R-WA), Helms (R-NC), Kempthorne (R-ID), Lott (R-MS), McCain (R-AZ), Smith (R-NH), and Wallop (R-WY).

On February 22, 1994, again with Lugar’s vigorous support, Talbott was confirmed by the Senate by a Yea-Nay Vote of 66-31 to the post of Deputy Secretary of State. Once again, McCain voted against him.

While critical of the George W. Bush Administration, Talbott hosted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a May 2007 meeting of the International Advisory Council of Brookings. In his book, he gives credit to Rice for “moderating the tone and substance” of policy coming from the Bush White House in the president’s second term.

Talbott’s book, The Great Experiment, not only ignores the role of Soviet spy Alger Hiss in founding the U.N. but describes the production of the U.N. Charter as a “very public American project.” He thanks George Soros and Walter Isaacson, formerly of Time but now with the Aspen Institute, for their input on his manuscript.
Talbott also gives thanks to convicted document thief Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s national security adviser who now advises Hillary’s presidential campaign; Soros associate Morton Halperin, formerly of the ACLU; Javier Solana of the European Union; and Bill Clinton, “for helping me better to understand several aspects of his view of the world and America’s role in it.”

A close personal friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Talbott is described in the Comrade J book as having been “a special unofficial contact” of the Russian intelligence agency, the SVR, when he was Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration. Talbott had been in charge of Russian affairs.

“Inside the SVR, that term was used only to identify a top-level intelligence source who had high social and/or political status and whose identity needed to be carefully guarded,” the book says. On the same level of interest was Fidel Castro’s brother Raul, a communist “recruited by the KGB during the Khrushchev era” who continued to work for the Russians after the Soviet collapse, the book says. He, too, was a “special unofficial contact.”

Talbott was allegedly manipulated and deceived by Russia’s then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Georgi Mamedov, who was “secretly working” for Russian intelligence, the book alleges. The book, however, does not make the specific charge that Talbott was recruited as a Russian spy or was a conscious agent of the Russian regime.

The book cites Talbott as an “example of how a skilled intelligence agency could manipulate a situation and a diplomatic source to its advantage without the target realizing he was being used for intelligence-gathering purposes.” It says Mamedov was “instructed” by the SVR to ask specific questions to get information about certain matters.

The book says that Talbott was so compromised by his relationship with Mamedov that the FBI asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright not to share information with Talbott about an espionage investigation at the State Department because Mamedov might learn about it and tip off Russian intelligence. Earley says he confirmed this account but that Albright has refused to discuss the incident.

The book cites a House of Representatives report, released in September 2000, which found that the Clinton Administration and Talbott in particular had excused the actions of the Russian government and had failed to promote democracy and free enterprise there.

Earley’s book itself discusses how, during the mid 1990s, Talbott, State Department spokesman Mike McCurry, and President Clinton himself echoed Russian propaganda that justified Russian attacks on Chechnya. This “delighted the propagandists inside the SVR,” which claimed credit” for what the U.S. officials had said, the book says.

It seems that Talbott has a tendency, which continues to the present day, of whitewashing the Russian regime.

In congressional testimony just last October on U.S.-Russian relations, Talbott attacked the Bush Administration for withdrawing from the ABM treaty, urged Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, and advocated more negotiations and agreements with Russia over nuclear arms. The U.S. has “set a bad example” for the Russians in foreign affairs, Talbott said.

With all of these high-powered connections, the story about Talbott being used by the Russians seems to be a story worth reporting or commenting on. However, if the media examine the charges against Talbott, they might have to deal with other evidence and information in the book about how spies for the Soviet intelligence service manipulated the U.S. media.

The book, for instance, explains how the Soviet KGB peddled charges that deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to Europe in the 1980s might lead to their use and a “nuclear winter” or climate crisis for the world. The book says the story was cooked up by the KGB and fed to the Western world by anti-nuclear activists such as Carl Sagan, who penned an article on the topic for the Council on Foreign Relations journal Foreign Affairs. The book notes that Sagan later appeared on the ABC television network to talk about the subject.

Tretyakov says he discovered “dozens of case studies” of the KGB using “propaganda and disinformation to influence public opinion” in the West.
A prominent journalist himself at one time, Talbott achieved notoriety for writing a July 20, 1992, Time column, “The Birth of the Global Nation,” saying that in the next century “nationhood as we know it will be obsolete,” that we will all some day become world citizens, and that wars and human rights violations in the 20th century had clinched “the case for world government.” This reflects the views of the pro-world government World Federalist movement.

“The piece made me briefly popular with foreign policy liberals and, not so briefly, a target of brickbats from the right,” he says in his book. He acknowledges that his parents were members of the World Federalist Movement (they were also “active in the internationalist wing of the Republican Party in the late forties and early fifties “) and that he had a dog growing up known as “Freddie,” which was short for World Federalists. The World Federalist Movement collaborated with Soviet front groups such as the Soviet Peace Committee during the Cold War and tried to avoid scrutiny from anti-communist congressional committees after World War II.

In one of his first major media appearances after his selection as Brookings president, on the Charlie Rose program, he was identified in promotional material as a World Federalist. But this designation doesn’t appear in the official biography on the Brookings website.

Talbott’s global left-wing vision was endorsed personally by President Clinton, who had sent a June 22, 1993, letter to the World Federalist Association (WFA) when it gave Talbott its Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. In the letter, Clinton noted that Cousins, the WFA founder, had “worked for world peace and world government” and that Talbott was a “worthy recipient” of the award. Talbott and Bill Clinton became friends when they were both Rhodes Scholars.

Hillary Clinton, who has been friends with Talbott since their days together at Yale University, gave a videotaped address to the WFA in 1999 on the occasion of the group giving former anchorman of the CBS Evening News Walter Cronkite its global governance award. She praised Cronkite’s work. For his part, Cronkite declared that “we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government” and America must “yield up some of our sovereignty.”

Other Russia reports:

A leading activist of the opposition United Civil Front (OGF) party has revealed that he is employed by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Alexander Novikov, who is currently in Denmark, told Novaya Gazeta that he “was tired of living a double life and setting up my friends.” He is seeking political asylum abroad.

Novikov explained how he first penetrated the OGF, the political party led by Garry Kasparov that has been outspoken in its criticism of the Putin administration. The FSB concocted a cover story that Novikov was planning to form an independent union of health workers. According to Novikov, he signed a contract with the agency whereby he was paid eight thousand rubles (€221 or $325) per month for collecting information on the party. Novikov’s handlers were primarily interested in the relationships between members of the movement, and wanted to know who was closest to the leadership. Allegedly, the information Novikov divulged prevented Garry Kasparov from registering as a presidential candidate. By Russian law, at least 500 supporters must gather to jump-start a presidential campaign, and an appropriate venue is required. Yet the first conference room Kasparov had rented refused to host his “initiative group,” and the OGF scrambled to find another space to announce Kasparov’s candidacy.

Novikov said he reported each location that the OGF was considering to his supervisors. In the end, Kasparov could not find a space willing to host his meeting, and subsequently dropped his presidential bid. Meanwhile, Russian law forbids planting agents into organizations that are not banned on Russian territory. According to the law on “Operational Investigation Activity” of 1995, this includes political parties, civil and religious groups, and other organizations that are officially registered.

Roman Dobrokhotov, the leader of the “We” movement, told the Sobkor@ru news agency that he could not remember one political action that Novikov did not participate in. He added that it seemed strange that an FSB agent would “shine” so much at the events. Still, Dobrokhotov noted that Novikov’s announcement comes as little surprise, and he is convinced that there are other undercover intelligence officers among Russia’s opposition groups. In Dobrokhotov’s opinion, Novikov likely confessed to his role in the FSB after he began genuinely sympathizing with the opposition.

The Moscow Times adds:

A former opposition activist who claims that he was recruited by the Federal Security Service to infiltrate former chess champion Garry Kasparov's political movement said Thursday that he had applied for political asylum in Britain. Alexander Novikov, who said he was paid 8,000 rubles per month over a period of two years to give the FSB regular reports on Kasparov's organization, the United Civil Front, said he had applied for asylum at the British Embassy in Copenhagen.

In a telephone interview from Denmark, Novikov, 36, said his FSB handlers wanted to know about "any step, any move, any protest" by Kasparov's group. "They were interested in everything, down to the finest detail," Novikov said. Novikov's story supports claims by opposition activists that the FSB sends spies into their ranks, despite a 1995 law that forbids law enforcers from covertly joining registered political organizations with the goal of influencing their activities. "I have suspected several people of being agents," said Lolita Tsariya, who heads the Moscow branch of the United Civil Front. She confirmed that Novikov had participated in the United Civil Front's meetings and protests. Novikov said he was "ashamed" of his behavior and had gone to the West so he could be free to tell his story. An interview he gave to Danish television this week included a public apology to Kasparov.

Reached by telephone Thursday, Kasparov said he was aware of Novikov's story but too busy to comment. An FSB spokesman declined to comment immediately Thursday and asked for a written inquiry. A faxed request for comment was not answered in time for publication. Repeated phone calls to the Moscow branch of the FSB went unanswered Thursday. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Copenhagen declined to comment for this report.

Andrei Soldatov, an independent expert on the Russian security services who met Novikov in Denmark and wrote an article published Thursday in Novaya Gazeta, said he was convinced that Novikov had collaborated with the FSB. "There were simply very many small details that seemed right -- what side of the street people walked on, how they set up the meetings and so on," said Soldatov, who edits the web site Agentura.ru. Novikov said his career as a snitch began about two years ago, after he went to an FSB office to inquire about an acquaintance whom he had not seen for a long time. Two weeks later, the FSB called him back and offered "an interesting job," Novikov said. That job was spying on the United Civil Front. Soldatov said he did not believe the story of Novikov's recruitment but that details about Novikov's contacts with his FSB handlers were credible.

Novikov met regularly with his handlers in cafes and cars, providing them with written reports about Kasparov's organization, said Novikov, adding that his FSB codename was "Mikhail." Initially his handler was a man named Alexei Vladimirovich, and then it was a younger man named Alexei Lvovich, he said. While being filmed by Danish television this week, Novikov called Alexei Lvovich on his mobile phone. The two discussed payment issues, and Novikov told his handler that he might be appointed to a committee within the United Civil Front, according to a transcript of the conversation published by Novaya Gazeta. Novikov said he participated regularly in Dissenters' Marches and other protests. Last November, he was detained during a protest outside Moscow police headquarters on Ulitsa Petrovka in support of Kasparov, who was in jail at the time.

Gradually, Novikov began to sympathize with the opposition activists he was spying on, which sparked arguments with his FSB handlers, who called the activists "sick people" and "idiots," he said. "I told them, 'If these people are sick, why do you beat them? Why do you attack them with clubs?'" Novikov recalled. Novikov claimed that Tsariya, his fellow activist, had recently offered him a position as head of the northwestern Moscow branch of the United Civil Front. He also claimed that in December he spoiled Kasparov's plans to run for president by telling the FSB which venue would host the required meeting of 500 supporters who would nominate Kasparov as a candidate. After his supporters failed to find a venue that could host the meeting, Kasparov abandoned his presidential plans. Tsariya, however, questioned those two claims. She denied that she had offered him any leadership position in the organization, stressing that it was an elected position, not an appointed one. "He had no chances of becoming a leader because he did not have much authority within the organization," Tsariya said.

Novikov could not have told the FSB where Kasparov's supporters were planning to meet because he did not have access to that information, she added. When told about Tsariya's charges, Novikov conceded that he was not necessarily the person who derailed Kasparov's presidential plans because there were probably others working for the FSB as well. "I suspect there were other people besides me," he said. Both Tsariya and Soldatov speculated that Novikov's real motive in airing his story was to immigrate to the West, possibly for economic reasons. Soldatov said he might be omitting some parts in order to improve his image. "One can think of many possible reasons why he wants to go to the West," Soldatov said. "It is possible he is taking advantage of his situation in order to stay there. But is that enough reason to dismiss his story as total rubbish? I do not think so."

An Open Letter to President Putin

by Vladimir Sinelnikov*

Yezhednevniy Zhurnal

February 7, 2008

Dear Mr. President,

I would imagine that most of the letters sent to you contain one or another request. But I have a different purpose: I would like to direct your attention to a recent event which reflects as in a drop of water a phenomenon that is without a doubt causing much concern in Russian society. I hope that what I set forth in the letter below will cause your assistants to bring it to your attention.

About two years ago, during the day, I was returning from a film shoot in my minivan, and as we crossed the square where not long ago there stood a monument to Dzerzhinskiy [TN: Feliks Dzerzhinskiy, the founder of the KGB; his statue stood in front of the headquarters of the KGB, now the FSB, on Lubyanka Square] my vehicle was hit broadside by a car speeding through a red light, impacting right in the spot were I was sitting in the passenger seat. I could not get out of my vehicle, because I was covered in cuts from broken glass and was in a state of shock. But my driver, who was not as badly injured, was able to get out and headed for a traffic island in the middle of the square. The driver responsible for the collision approached the traffic police posted there and told them: “Listen up: I’m an FSB officer on assignment to the Russian Presidential Administration. When you write up your report, start with that.” Then right there, at the scene of the accident, he got on his mobile phone and called two people, who arrived in 4-5 minutes and claimed they were “bystanders” to the accident. After giving their eyewitness accounts they identified themselves for the report as FSB officers (thereby explaining how they were able to get to the traffic island so quickly from their place of work).

Beginning the next day the leadership of the traffic police special cases unit became the target of unprecedented pressure from federal and Moscow city law enforcement agencies, which demanded that the FSB officer Subbotkin, who was driving the car that rammed into mine - and who loudly proclaimed at the scene of the accident that he worked for you, Mr. President - be exonerated from all responsibility for the accident. But that’s not all. Without any request whatsoever from the police, Subbotkin brought to the traffic police investigations office a videotape which, it turns out, the FSB makes 24 hours a day of the square where the accident took place. Unfortunately for him, he did not anticipate that analysis of the tape by independent experts would only further prove his responsibility for the accident. But a fact remains a fact, and the tape was entered into the case file.

Despite all the pressure that was placed on him, the traffic police investigator refused to declare that my own driver, and not Subbotkin, was responsible for the accident. The most the investigator would agree to do was write was that he could not determine who was at fault. And for that he was immediately sent into retirement. I appealed in a letter to the chief of the FSB Personal Security Directorate, General Kupryashkin, setting before him a single question: whether it was true what Subbotkin said at the scene of the accident, that he was an FSB officer. And also whether the two “bystanders” who supposedly saw the accident were FSB officers as well. (Again, they themselves gave their names and places of employment in the course of the investigation at the scene of the accident.) In a letter signed by one of Kupryashkin’s assistants, it was confirmed that they were all FSB employees. I am attaching this letter because one point is worthy of your attention: in this letter, the agency does not give an assessment of the conduct of any of its officers - neither Subbotkin, nor the false witnesses. Furthermore, while confirming their affiliation with the FSB, the respondent nonetheless did not give the officers’ last names, and confirmed their involvement in the affair only as anonymous figures. But instead he assured me that they (“they” who? the witnesses?) had “not threatened” me, although I never said a single word about this, and never even saw the witnesses.

After this I wrote a letter to the chief of your administration, Mr. Sobyanin, in which I asked him to confirm or disconfirm that Subbotkin is an FSB officer on assignment to the Presidential Administration. I received an official reply, delivered to me by state courier, signed receipt required, which said that Subbotkin is in fact an employee of your administration.

Then I turned to the courts, and here, Mr President, several additional circumstances came to light that are worthy of your attention. The judge demanded that I state Subbotkin’s place of residence - i.e., provide his certificate of domicile - even though in the accident report he wrote his address in his own hand, and it was accurate enough that a telegram sent there to determine the damage he inflicted on my car reached him. It turns out, Mr. President, that Mr. Subbotkin’s place of residence is not at the address given by him, but another: Bolshaya Lubyanka, Bldg 1/3. I know that you once worked at this address, as does Mr. Patrushev [the current head of the FSB], and that this is the location of the KGB’s prison, but I cannot imagine where in this vicinity Subbotkin might be residing. I can’t help but ask: for what purpose would we have a regulation, written or unwritten, that gives intelligence officers the right to register as their domicile their place of work? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to change such a law, if it exists, or extend it to all organizations, including my television company?

I do not know why - I do not want to imagine why - but the court lost my case file on two separate occasions, and was not even able to tell me the date on which the court supposedly returned my documents to me. So twice I had to start all over again, pull together all the necessary documents, and again pay the court fees. And then, just after my story appeared on the website of the Russian organization “For Human Rights” (Za Prava Cheloveka), the judge who twice lost my case file suddenly disappeared, and the whole process had to begin again from a blank piece of paper. In this way, Mr. President, my story proceeded for two years. And then, just when the my case was finally going to court, who should appear but Mr Subbotkin (I should note that he never once appeared in court these two years, but suddenly he turned up, as soon the court found him responsible in absentia and ordered him to pay for damages to my vehicle). And here occurs the main turn of events that is worthy of your attention. Subbotkin filed a retaliatory suit, alleging that my driver was responsible for the accident.

But that’s not the main thing. Subbotkin also demanded that I be held responsible for tarnishing his image and honor as an FSB officer, referring to the fact that the above story, word for word, appeared on the website of the “For Human Rights” organization. He does not deny that he presented himself at the accident site as an FSB officer; does not deny that he personally delivered to the traffic police a videotape produced by the intelligence services; and he does not deny that he called his FSB colleagues to serve as false witnesses. But he accuses me of taking the liberty of drawing to public attention the fact that he is a member of the intelligence services. [TN: Emphasis in the original.]

Yes, I knowingly passed this information to the respected organization’s website. And I will say further: this story became the subject of an hour-long program on the radio station “Svoboda” (Freedom), in which I was joined by the recently-elected Russian Duma deputy and retired FSB General Kandaurov. On the program, Kandaurov gave his unambiguous assessment of Subbotkin’s conduct. At the end of the program I asked him to answer a question for me. “I thought,” I told him and the program’s listeners, “that this story would end approximately as follows: I would be invited to FSB headquarters, where they would admit their involvement in what happened, and tell me that Subbotkin would not be able to discuss the matter with me because he was fulfilling his duties in a garrison somewhere near Chita [TN: city in eastern Siberia]. Or will they instead just send the tax inspector to visit my television company?” I asked. Kandaurov smiled and answered, “After the website affair, and now this hour-long program on ‘Svoboda’, they will first apologize... And then they will send the tax inspector.”

Kandaurov was halfway wrong, but also turned out to be halfway right. No one has apologized, and Subbotkin is not in Chita, but continues to work in Moscow, in your administration, Mr. President. Moreover, regarding the tax inspector, I was apparently provident in my thinking. In his retaliatory suit Subbotkin demands of the court that I present a legal document specifying the date my driver began working for me as driver at the television company, what kind of personal relationship he has with me, in what capacity he had the right to drive, etc., etc.

In court Subbotkin begged for the mercy of the court, requesting he be allowed to pay the court fees in installments (the same court fees that I had to pay twice), because he was living in poverty. Nonetheless, he had two lawyers accompanying him to court. It would be interesting to know who paid the not insignificant sum for their fees - Subbotkin, or the agency that shares in his injury at having their honor and dignity tarnished?

Dear Mr. President, I will get to the point. The story of my automobile accident is an everyday occurrence in our lives; it is a matter for the courts, experts, etc. But what worries me, and not only me, is something different: this story has been dragging on for two years; official letters from the FSB and the Presidential Administration convince me that these authoritative organizations know very well who works for them and why I asked for their answers. Now, as Subbotkin is filing his retaliatory suit regarding the offending of his dignity as an FSB officer, it has become clear that there is no talk of his being sent to Chita. Subbotkin understood what his senior managers indicated to him by their two years of utter silence: you’ve done everything just right, Subbotkin. With regard to this I have some thoughts and questions: who is Subbotkin related to, or whose daughter did he marry? Not one of your daughters, of course - yours are too young. I don’t know if Patrushev has any daughters, but the circle of influential people is not so narrow and tight. But perhaps it is even worse than that? Perhaps all members of the intelligence services now allow themselves to think that the day has arrived when they can behave like this. The untouchability of the head of the government, guaranteed by the Constitution, the untouchability of his narrow circle, and now the bureaucratic riff-raff with their government-issued personal weapons – they are all a threat to society as a whole. Not yet 20 years have passed since we became convinced of this. And look where that led the previous regime as well.

My friends and colleagues urged me not to send this letter to you. Yes, yes, Mr. President, alas, everyone is thinking about this nowadays, fear is in the air. But I have behind me films about Chernobyl, Sakharov, and the interrelationships between the people and the authorities, and I have those ten days in the life of Yuri Lyubimov, which the Politburo of the USSR allowed him to spend in his Motherland to reproduce his performance of “Boris Godunov” at the Taganka Theater.

On your decree, Mr. President, I was awarded the Order of Valor for the film “The Bell of Chernobyl” [1987], which was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for being shown in every country of the world having television. This was the last “unreleasable film” (полочная картина) of the Soviet era, having been released to viewers in the new era. Military men, with whom I am nowadays working on upcoming films, tell me that this is the only medal that cannot be earned while serving “on the parquet” [in the rear]. I am proud of this medal and remember it now, as I grow depressed while shooting a series on international terrorism in places that would make one envy Chernobyl. That’s why I’m writing you this letter regardless.

I have nothing to share with Subbotkin. But the manner in which they relate to him in his place of work is a very important sign, of the most profound sort. Especially now, on the eve of the presidential elections. This is my first letter to you and, probably, it will be my last. Letters to presidents - they’re not my genre. But I want to tell you one thing, having now taken up my pen: it seems like there is a plan being worked out today to cause society to completely condemn the 1990’s. But from those years we got not only the oligarchs who robbed Russia blind, but also those who created the democratic basis for our life today, and, to get right to the point, those who make up the political elite in today’s society. The intelligentsia that was formed in the 1990’s is a part of our society not compensated by anything or anyone. “Without me the people are incomplete”, said the great Russian poet. Without the intelligentsia the people are also incomplete. The year after Sakharov’s death in Padul, Italy, there was a reading of his writings. The head of the Russian delegation, Anatoly Sobchak [TN: former mayor of Saint Petersburg, and Putin’s first boss after leaving the KGB], invited me to join the delegation and bring my recently completed film “Sakharov – the Man and the Era”. The delegation was small, but included Yuri Karyakin, Gleb Yakunin and Yelena Bonner. Now I think to myself, how sad it is that these people are not around you today. But instead we have Subbotkin at the scene of a traffic accident, proclaiming to the police that he is Your Man. And in court they make it clear that no one is allowed to make encroachments on the honor of an officer of the intelligence services and a member of the Presidential Administration.

Mr. President, my story is not about a personal offense, but about my fear for the society in which I live, along with you, and your children, and mine.

Respectfully,

Vladimir Sinelnikov

General Director and Artistic Manager

Television Studio “Kloto”

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*Here is a brief biographical statement on the author, from a 2005 interview published in the Russian-American newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo:

Vladimir Lvovich Sinelnikov founded one of the first independent television stations in Russia, “Channel 31”, and is currently the owner and artistic director of the television studio “Kloto”. He has written screenplays for approximately one hundred documentaries, and has been awarded numerous prizes at national and international film festivals. Among the films and television serials based on his screenplays: the four-part series “The Bell of Chernobyl” [1987]; “The Academic Sakharov - A Man for all Time”; “Mirages and Hopes” [1996]; “Memories of the Present”; and “The Final Myth” [1999]. His current project, a series on international terrorism, is being partly financed by the Ukrainian businessman and patron of the arts Vadim Shulman.)

For readers of Russian, the full text of Sinelnikov’s correspondence with the FSB related to his traffic accident with Subbotkin can be found on the website of the organization “For Human Rights”, at: http://www.zaprava.ru/content/view/921/