Spy generals

Spy cases help officers of special services make their careers

Irina Borogan / www.agentura.ru special to Versia February 12-18, 2002 /

- SPY CASES ARE IN FASHION AGAIN IN RUSSIA. EVEN IN THE CALMEST REGIONS WITH NEITHER EXTERNAL BORDERS NOR IMPORTANT MILITARY SITES, SPIES ARE UNCOVERED; AND SOMETIMES RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE EVEN FINDS AGENTS OF NON-EXISTENT FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES. THE GOVERNMENT GENEROUSLY REWARDS THEM FOR SUCH FEATS.

Diplomat Moiseev, journalist Pasko, scientists Soifer and Sutyagin are the people whom the Federal Security Service (FSB) has accused of selling state secrets to enemies. Regardless of results of proceedings, they have helped some FSB officers make their career.

The most fruitful case was that of Grigory Pasko, journalist of the newspaper of the Pacific Fleet "Boevaya Vakhta." At least three FSB officers who had to do with this case have gained profit from it.

The late German Ugryumov was promoted from the position of chief of the Pacific Fleet FSB Department to the position of chief of the Department for Combating Organized Crime and then deputy director of FSB. Chief of the Primorye FSB Department Sergei Verevkin-Rokhalsky was appointed deputy minister for taxes and duties, and now he works as senior deputy director of the Federal Service of Tax Police.

Investigator Alexander Yegorkin, who headed the investigation group on Pasko, was appointed chief of the Investigation Department of the Pacific Fleet FSB Department in two months after the criminal proceedings were instituted. However, the court did not find Pasko guilty of espionage, and so Yegorkin's work was useless. Moreover, the court found out that Yegorkin himself violated the Criminal-Proceedings Code in the course of the investigation and forged some materials of the criminal case. He was reprimanded for this, but then he was given the rank of a major of justice, apparently in order to console him after the reprimand.

In the second half of the 1990's, the Primorye Territory became the leader in catching spies. This partly may be explained by the fact that journalists often write about the miserable state of the Pacific Fleet based here. Journalists often write about officers stealing military hardware and selling it. Of course, the regional FSB department should display bustling activity to prevent such things.

In July 1999, employees of the Primorye Territorial FSB Department searched the apartment and laboratory of oceanologist Vladimir Soifer. FSB officers explained their actions by the statement that his ecological research threatens the country's security.

Nevertheless, proceedings against him were discontinued in connection with an amnesty. The proceedings were led to the amnesty under the guidance of Verevkin-Rokhalsky personally. But the professor did not give in and protested against the amnesty, for FSB officials had told him that criminal proceedings had not been instituted against him. In May 2001, the Primorye FSB Department has to close this case because of the absence of corpus delicti. But Verevkin-Rokhalsky had gone to Moscow by that time.

Spy passions are bustling even in the calmest territories having neither borders nor significant military objects. For example, Chief of the Sector of Military-Political Survey of the Institute for the US and Canada Igor Sutyagin was accused by the Kaluga Regional FSB Department of giving information to foreign intelligences. Sutyagin collected this information by means of analyzing publications in Russian and foreign newspapers. Experts of the FSB Scientific Research Center acknowledged these publications as secret to the surprise of lawyers. However, the Kaluga Regional Court considered this accusation non-concrete and concluded that four expert inspections of the degree of secrecy had been performed with gross infractions. Therefore, the case was returned for more detailed investigation. However, according to our sources, Chief of the Investigation Sector of the Kaluga Regional FSB Department V.S. Kalashnikov managed to get the rank of a colonel immediately after the case was brought to court.

Three weeks ago special services of the Penza Region became famous for disclosing a 22-year-old spy who had recruited a 16-year-old schoolboy. It is noteworthy that this spy introduced himself as an agent of Dutch intelligence, a service which does not exist at all.

The Penza FSB Department is headed by Alexander Grishin, who is known as a fervent fighter against spies. For example, in 2000, he announced that special services of the US, Germany, Korea, China, and Israel are haunting the region trying to obtain state secrets and ... oust Penza manufacturers from world markets. However, Grishin's career is successfully developing, and in December 1999, Colonel Grishin became major general. It is not ruled out that soon he will be promoted again.

Valentin Moiseev, Former deputy director of First Department of Asia of the Foreign Ministry, has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years of prison with confiscation of property for spying in favor of South Korea. Moiseev was arrested on the morning of July 4, 1998, after adviser of the Korean Embassy in Russia Cho Son Yu left his apartment.

It is significant that initially, in December 1999, the Moscow City Court sentenced Moiseyev to 12 years in prison, but in another six months the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation abolished this sentence and sent the case for reconsideration; as a result, in August 2001 the term of the sentence was decreased at least three times. And the defense predicted that.

"What was actually done with Moiseyev is called creation of the situation for recruitment. The intelligence service of South Korea could use his friendly relations with Cho Son U to recruit him. When the FSB was attacking involvement of Cho Son U, having got to know of Moiseyev's acquaintance with a Korean, an agent of the FSB Mishayev (his name changed) met with Moiseyev and the latter confirmed that.

Later on, the FSB used the materials provided by Moiseyev as evidence against him. This is a provocation from the juridical point of view," advocate Yuriy Gervis thinks.

Mishayev has also been a witness on the case. By the way, for a mysterious reason, the FSB included "An agreement on protecting migrant birds" into the list of secret documentation Moiseyev had passed to the intelligence service of South Korea.

Senior investigator Vasiliy Petukhov, who was pleading the case of Moiseyev, started this case in the rank of captain and senior investigator, whereas now his is lieutenant colonel and investigator for grave cases. According to the advocate, agent of the FSB Mishayev was also conferred the rank of lieutenant colonel and was appointed head of the sector.

Naum Nim, editor-in-chief of the "Index on Censorship", thinks the FSB wants to restore the right-applicative practice, when the accusation by itself is considered evidence of the crime. The investigators had plenty of time to prepare for the second trial against Nikolai Pasko, Nim said, but they did not do that, since they sincerely did not understand why they should. This is nostalgia for older times, but there are, unfortunately, grounds for it: the FSB was allowed dealing with investigation, what it had been deprived of from 1993 to 1995, and the notorious Lefortovo prison.

Yuriy Gervis, diplomat Moiseyev's advocate stated that the professional level of investigation in the FSB has terribly worsened.

Gervis had served a decade in the investigation department of KGB-FIC (Federal Investigation Committee) and resigned in 1993. "The professional employees are lost. For instance, in the 1st, so-called, espionage FSB department has no investigators, except for the chief of the department, who had graduated from the FSB Academy of the Russian Federation. All of them have military education. There is nobody to catch real spies, and therefore the FSB is making spies from people of public professions, who communicate with foreign organizations on their work. 

“There is another trend - all 'espionage' cases are conjectural, weakly backed by evidence, and are all top secret in order to conceal errors and follies," Yuriy Gervis said.

(Translated by Kirill Frolov and Andrei Ryabochkin)