Intelligence

Russians accuse 4 Britons of spying

Russians accuse 4 Britons of spying - Print Version - International Herald Tribune

By Steven Lee Myers The New York Times
MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2006

MOSCOW An espionage scandal redolent of the Cold War unfolded here Monday after Russia accused four British diplomats of spying and linked some of their activities to the financing of prominent private organizations, including the Eurasia Foundation and the Moscow Helsinki Group.

A grainy, black-and-white video - broadcast on state television Sunday night and shown repeatedly again Monday - claimed to show a British diplomat picking up a rock that was said to conceal a communications device used to download and transmit classified information through hand-held computers.

The rock, the size of a watermelon and able to transmit and receive data at distances of more than 18 meters, or 60 feet, was seized near Moscow, prompting a search across the city for similar devices, Sergei Ignatchenko, the chief spokesman for Russia's intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, told Russian reporters, according to the Interfax news agency.

A second device was found, but "the British intelligence service managed to retrieve one of the gadgets," he said.

A Russian citizen has been arrested for complicity, but another spokesman for the Russian intelligence agency, Nikolai Zakharov, declined to say when and whether he had been formally charged. Zakharov would say only that the spy ring had been discovered and broken up at the beginning of winter.

The fate of the British diplomats - identified as mid-ranking secretaries in the embassy - remained unclear. Ignatchenko said their possible expulsion would be determined "at the political level."

The scandal, one of the most serious in years, threatened to raise diplomatic tensions, even as Russia assumed the presidency of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, which includes Britain. Ignatchenko accused Britain of violating an agreement in 1994 to end espionage in Russia. "In fact," he said, "we have been deceived."

Prime Minister Tony Blair, answering questions at a news conference in London, declined to comment.

"I'm afraid you are going to get the old stock-in-trade: 'We never comment on security matters,' except when we want to, obviously," Blair said.

"I think the less said about that, the better," he added.

The nature of the espionage was shrouded in secrecy, but the link to private organizations came amid a politically charged campaign against charities and advocacy groups here, many of them financed by the United States and European countries to promote democracy, independent media and other aspects of civil society.

Earlier this month President Vladimir Putin signed into law new legal restrictions on such groups, which critics have said could be used to pressure those critical of Russian policies.

The relation between the espionage charges and the organizations appeared tangential, however.

Zakharov said in a telephone interview that one of the diplomats, identified as Marc Doe, a political secretary, approved grants distributed by the British government to Russian and international organizations, even as he was involved in covert activities.

"He gave money to them," he said, referring to the organizations. "That is all documented."

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow declined to comment on the affair but cited a statement by the Foreign Office that said, "We reject any allegations of any improper conduct in our dealings with Russian" private organizations.

"All of our assistance is given openly and aims to support the development of a healthy civil society in Russia," he said.

One of the groups supported by Britain and cited by officials was the Eurasia Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Washington that provides an array of grants across the former Soviet Union.

Irina Akishina, director of the Moscow office, said in a telephone interview that the organization had received a grant worth about $105,000 in 2004 to promote independent newspapers in provincial Russian cities.

She expressed bewilderment at the accusations, saying the television report, which appeared on the state's Rossiya channel with the cooperation of the Federal Security Service, was the first she heard of any questions surrounding her organization.

She said the accusations reflected the government's growing hostility toward private organizations that operate independently of the Kremlin.

"We certainly do feel there is some danger," she said, referring to the new law on organizations like hers. "We do not understand at all why we were mentioned in this program.

"We are not involved in any illegal activities."

The Moscow Helsinki Group, also linked to the case, is one of the country's most prominent human-rights organizations and is often critical of the Kremlin.

Russia's intelligence chiefs have publicly warned about the threat of espionage from the West. The warnings have underscored a growing wariness in Russian intelligence and diplomatic circles about what is widely seen as foreign interference in domestic affairs, especially following American and European support for democratic movements in Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet republics.

"Reconnaissance is not only not waning," Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the Federal Security Service, said in an interview in the official state newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta, in November. "It is strengthening."

In the interview he said that last year counterintelligence agents had exposed 20 agents working for foreign governments and 65 foreigners working for secret services. Earlier last year Patrushev singled out several non-governmental organizations, including the Peace Corps and a British charity, Merlin, as fronts for foreign espionage.

"Under the cover of implementing humanitarian and educational programs in Russia regions, they lobby for the interests of certain countries and gather classified information on a wide range of issues," he said of representatives of the private organizations.

Patrushev's remarks, sharply criticized at the time by the American and British governments, nevertheless became a basis of the new law putting such organizations under greater scrutiny.

The latest scandal involved espionage of a more traditional sort, though with a high-tech twist. The fake rock was used as a dead drop, an agreed place for exchanging classified information or otherwise communicating with agents. Where exactly it was remained unclear, though the television report showed it on a sidewalk near what was identified as a park on the edge of Moscow.

The hidden communication device allowed a Russian agent to transmit information in bursts lasting no more than a second or two, said Ignatchenko and other security officials. The British operatives could then download the information with their own palm computers, the officials said, declining to discuss the nature of the information that the Russian provided to the British agents, or its significance.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

January 23, 2006 at 07:52 PM in Russia | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home