Dig the ground. US intelligence said it was starting to search for "Russian mole"

December 4 2010 1

Russian-American “spy scandals” are gaining momentum since this summer. The Washington Times claims that Russian agents are introduced to the US National Security Agency and even the Pentagon. The Americans said they intend to find "moles" in their elite special services. And veterans of domestic intelligence do not exclude anything, not even an ice ax for defectors.

Active searches for the mole, allegedly cooperating with Moscow, began among employees of the American National Security Agency (ANB), whose activities are considered to be one of the most secret, ITAR-TASS news agency reported on Friday with reference to The Washington Times newspaper.

In the American edition on Wednesday, the testimony of retired US intelligence officers was published, claiming that the search for deeply secreted "Russian agents" was being conducted at the NSA after the summer "spy scandal" exposing ten Russian intelligence agents.

“It is believed that they were issued by a former employee of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of Russia, Colonel Alexander Poteev, who fled to the United States shortly before the June visit to the Russian president,” writes the American edition. As US counterintelligence officers suspect, the American “members of this network of illegal immigrants were used by the SVRs to maintain contact with one or even several agents at the NSA who are engaged in electronic surveillance all over the world and hacking ciphers,” notes The Washington Times.

FBI resources are also connected to the internal investigation conducted by the NSA. “They are trying to calculate one or several Russian spies who, according to the NSA, are working at the Agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and, possibly, even in Pentagon intelligence services,” the newspaper quotes one of its sources. “The agency is convinced that at least one of them is in their ranks.”

The NSA and the FBI did not comment on the information of The Washington Times.

The American press reminds that the National Security Agency has already become a victim of loud scandals with revelations of Russian spies dating back to the 1960's. Then, according to The Washington Times, two high-ranking American intelligence officers went over to the side of the Soviet Union. And in 1985, NSA analyst Ronald Pelton was caught spying for Moscow: “He gave the Soviets extremely destructive secrets, including details of the underwater surveillance program using electronic systems for the Russian military’s cables,” recalls American analyst Bill Hertz.

A veteran of Soviet intelligence, lieutenant-general retired Nikolai Leonov was skeptical of the information spread by the American press: “Intelligence agencies are constantly looking for agents at each other and sending their agents to the other side of the ocean, no news not here. There is a permanent circulation of “moles” in nature, - the expert commented on the situation to the newspaper VIEW. - Deeply implemented agents are a piece of goods, they do not multiply en masse, this is painstaking jewelry work that is carried out constantly both in one and in the other direction. And this work will never end. "

At the same time, Leonov recommended that the Americans keep their ears open: “I don’t know whether they will find our agents or not, maybe this is just another PR myth searching for Russian spies in the NSA, but the fact that behind the defector Poteev can go his Ramon Mercader (an agent of the Soviet state security organs convicted by a Mexican court for attempting to kill Leon Trotsky, expelled from the USSR in 1929. I wouldn’t rule out joining Trotsky’s villa, Mercader struck him with an ice ax,) joked Nikolay Leonov.

By the way, he expressed surprise at the media hype around the figure of Anna Chapman: “The lists of ten expelled from the US have truly serious professionals who worked in intelligence in the USSR, and they are worthy of publications and glorification, and not the girl in whose professional intelligence competence - because of her age, personal characteristics and behavior - I doubt a little, ”Nikolai Leonov concluded.

Recall that in August the US Department of Justice announced the detention in the country of ten people suspected of spying for Russia. The American prosecutor’s office then charged all ten with criminal conspiracy to work as “secret agents of the government of the Russian Federation without prior notice to the Minister of Justice”, as well as illegal lobbying and money laundering.

They pleaded guilty to unregistered activities in favor of Russia. In addition, according to the deal with justice, the Russian agents named their true names: Vladimir and Lidia Guriev, Mikhail Kutsik and Natalia Pereverzeva, Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, Mikhail Vasenkov and Viki Pelaez, Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko.

After that, ten "Russian spies" were deported from New York to Moscow. In exchange, the Russian authorities released those in prison on charges of spying on Alexander Zaporozhsky, Gennady Vasilenko, Sergey Skripal and Igor Sutyagin, who had been pardoned by President Dmitry Medvedev.

In October, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev presented state awards to employees of the Foreign Intelligence Service, including those deported from the United States.