Russia’s Idled Spies

On November 11, 2002, Sweden expelled two Russian diplomats for spying radar and missile guidance technologies for the JAS 39 British-Swedish Gripen fighter jet developed by Telefon AB LM Ericsson, the telecommunications multinational. The Russians threatened to reciprocate. Five former and current employees of this giant are being researched. Ironically, the first foreign buyer of this aircraft may be Poland, a former Soviet satellite state and a current European Union candidate.

Sweden detained on suspicion of spying for Russia a employee of this engineering team in February 2001. The man has been discharged after two days for lack of proof and reinstated. Nevertheless, the weighty daily theorized that the new indiscretion had been in retaliation for espionage in Russia. Sweden is rumored to have already been in the market for Russian air radar layouts and the JAS radar system is said by some observers to uncannily resemble its eastern counterparts.

The identical afternoon, a Russian military intelligence (GRU) colonel, Aleksander Sipachev, has been sentenced in Moscow to eight years in prison and stripped of the position. According to Russian news agencies, he was convicted of attempting to sell secret files. Russian secret service personnel, idled by the withering of Russia’s international existence, resort to private company or are re-deployed by the state to spy industrial and financial secrets in order to assist budding Russian multinationals.

According to the FBI and the National White-collar Crime Center, Russian former secret agents have teamed with computer hackers to break into corporate networks to steal critical information about product development and marketing approaches. Microsoft has admitted to such a compromising intrusion.

At a December 1999 interview to Segodnya, a Russia paper, Eyer Winkler, a former high heeled staffer using the National Security Agency (NSA) confirmed that”corruption from the Russian Government, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Main Intelligence Department allows Russian organized criminal groups to utilize these branches in their own pursuits. Criminals get the major part of data collected by the Russian special services by way of breaking into virtual computer programs ”

When the KGB was dismantled and replaced by a multitude of new acronyms, Russian espionage was in diapers. Consequently, it’s a bureaucratic no-man’s land roamed by representatives of the GRU, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and also smaller outfits, such as the Federal Agency on Government Communications and Information (FAPSI).

According to Stratfor, the strategic forecasting consultancy,”the SVR and GRU both handle manned intellect on U.S. territory, with all the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) doing counterintelligence in the united states. Also, both the SVR and GRU have internal counterintelligence units made for discovering foreign intelligence ” This, to some extent, is the division of labor in Europe.

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor has warned against billion worth of secrets pilfered by foreign intelligence services, notably from east Europe and Russia. The Counterintelligence News and Developments newsletter pegs the harm in billion in 1996

“Modus operandi comprised putting agents in global organizations, putting up joint-ventures with German companies, and putting up fake companies. The (Federal Prosecutor’s) report also warned business leaders to be especially cautious of former diplomats or individuals who used to work for foreign secret services because they often had the language abilities and knowledge of Germany which made them excellent representatives.”

Russian spy rings now function to Japan in Canada. A number of the spies remembered to service after the implosion of the USSR and also are dormant. In accordance with Asian media, Russians are becoming increasingly active in the Far East, mostly in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and southern China.

Russia is worried about losing its edge in avionics, electronics, information technologies and some emerging defense industries such as laser shields, positronics, unmanned vehicles, wearable computing, and real time triple C (communication, command and control) automatic battle administration. The aims are France and Israel. According to media accounts, Russia’s defense industry – including India’s substantive customers – insist hollowing out installing and craft west and Israeli systems instead.

Russia state of mind extends into its interior. Uralinformbureau reported previously in 2002 the Yamal-Nenets autonomous okrug (district) limited access to Americans citing worries about industrial espionage and possible sabotage of oil and gas companies. The Kremlin maintains an ever-expanding list of lands and regions with – or outright – prohibited – accessibility to burglars.

The FSB, the KGB’s main successor, is active arresting spies all over the huge country. To choose a random events of those dozens reported every year – and most are not – the Russian daily Kommersant declared in February 2002 how when the Trunov works at the Novolipetsk metallurgical combine concluded an arrangement with a Chinese company to supply it with slabs, its main negotiator was nabbed as a spy working for”circles in China”. His offense? He was in possession of certain documents which contained”intellectual property” of the antiquated mill pertaining to a slab quality enhancement procedure.

Foreigners are also being detained, though rarely. Edmund Pope, an American businessman, has been arrested in April 2000 for attempting to purchase the blueprints of an advanced torpedo. There are a couple of other isolated apprehensions, largely for”appropriate”, army, espionage. But Russians bear the brunt of this campaign against foreign intelligence gathering.

Strana.ru reported in December 2001 that, speaking on the occasion of Security Services Day, Putin – himself a KGB alumnus – cautioned specialists the most important task facing the services today is”protecting the nation’s market against industrial espionage”.

That is nothing new. According to History of Espionage Internet site, long before they established diplomatic relations with the USA in 1933, the Soviets had Amtorg Trading Company. Its intent was to promote joint ventures between American and Russian companies. It was a heart of industrial actions. Dozens of Soviet intelligence officers supervised, during its summit during the menopause, 800 American communists. The Soviet Union’s European authorities in Berlin (Handelsvertretung) and in London (Arcos, Ltd.) were even more successful.