Alleged Unmasked CIA Agent Leaves Moscow

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NTV television reported that Ryan Fogle, the man Russia’s security services claimed to have captured last week as he tried to recruit a Russian to spy for the USA, left Russia on Sunday, saying that Fogle checked in on a flight at Sheremetyevo airport. Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) declared that Fogle, a Third Secretary at the US Embassy in Moscow, was persona non grata for “activity incompatible with his diplomatic status”, and instructed him to leave Russia by 20 May. Last Tuesday, the FSB claimed to have detained Fogle in the act of meeting a Russian special services operative, and offering him up to 1 million USD (31.5 million Roubles. 780,000 Euros. 660,000 UK Pounds) a year to spy for them. On Wednesday, the MID summoned US Ambassador Michael McFaul to formally protest Fogle’s activities. He declined to comment to the media on the incident. On Friday, a Russian intelligence agency publicly identified an individual that it claimed was the Moscow Station Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as of late 2011, a move widely seen as a breach of protocol in intelligence circles.

19 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130519/181239596/Alleged-Unmasked-CIA-Agent-Leaves-Moscow.html

Editor’s Note:

This smells more like intra-Russian infighting than it does Cold War tit-for-tat. The leftists have made common cause with the siloviki… and the pro-Western “liberals” {that is, libertarian Free Market buccaneers: editor} are Shit Out of Luck. Fogle was set up and he was stupid enough to fall for it. He was just the usual overeducated dweeb with an overinflated sense of self-worth. He was caught out… I still believe that he was a “roll yer own” operator, not a formally-trained Langley operative. What he did went against all the basic principles of spycraft… a real intel operator wouldn’t have carried what he had on his person or have done what he did.

VVP’s turning both “left” and “right”… he’s reaching for the legacy of both the Russian Empire and the USSR. This incident was “ready-made” for those who wish to discredit the Americans and those who wish to emulate them (mostly found in VERY small circles at the Centre and in Piter). In fact, it was rather too “convenient”… that is, this was more Sturm und Drang for a domestic audience than it was an actual nicking of a real spy. If Fogle were the real deal, they’d still be interrogating him, then, they’d have a show trial before shipping him off to Correctional Colony 1313 in the Sakha Republic to bust rocks under the Arctic Sun alongside Khodorkovsky.

However, here’s what perspirin’ minds wanna know… is there gonna be movement on l’Affaire Bout/Yaroshenko cuz Russia let Fogle fly free as a bird (sorry… I couldn’t resist the pun)? Hmm… could be…

BMD

Matviyenko Sez Cuba and Russia Ties on the Upswing

THIS is what HH thinks of El Comandante… any questions? He’s certainly not buying the lying rightwing twaddle that Potapov and Paffhausesn are peddling…

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During her official visit to Cuba, Valentina Matviyenko, chairman of the RF Federation Council, met with Cuban President Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz and Juan Esteban Lazo Hernández, the President of the Cuban National Assembly of the People’s Power, and said that relations between Russia and Cuba are having a renaissance. Matviyenko praised the expansion of bilateral partnership, trade, economic, scientific, and humanitarian cooperation between the countries. She told reporters on the flight back to Moscow, “Our delegation came to Havana to upgrade and boost parliamentary cooperation between our two countries. We discussed a number of issues during a two-hour talk, including Fidel Castro’s health. The Comandante is feeling OK; he’s following a strict régime under tight medical supervision”.

Matviyenko also said that apart from being an important strategic partner, Cuba’s also a good and reliable friend, noting, “Our countries have special bonds of fraternity and mutual respect; Russia has very warm and sincere feelings for Cubans. We love our Cuban friends and are ready for cooperation. Havana and Moscow became close allies under Fidel Castro… 2013 marks 50 years since his first visit to the USSR… Moscow and some other Russian cities noted the event. Now, bilateral cooperation is on the rise, mainly focused on trade and economy. Although last year’s trade turnover accounted for only some 220 million dollars (6.93 billion Roubles. 172 million Euros. 145 million UK Pounds), there’s a great potential for expansion”.

The streets of Havana have many signs of long-lasting friendship, such as Soviet-made cars. Despite Cuba’s turn to foreign investors, the USA doesn’t want to lift its sanctions, so, Havana eyes working with Russia. Lazo, the president of the Cuban National Assembly of the People’s Power, spoke about the prospects of bilateral energy cooperation, thinking that Russia could help in constructing new units and supplying equipment for Cuban power plants built with Soviet aid. Havana also expects Moscow’s help in exploring oil in its Gulf of Mexico wells and further construction of refineries. Russian investment in Cuba’s oil sector is important; at present, only Zarubezhneft does so, but other Russian companies shall also join in. Cuba also eyes cooperation with Russia in nickel production, tourism, and agriculture as well as seeking help to refurbish and upgrade the Mariel and Santa Cruz del Norte power plants.

Russia and Cuba are long-term partners. For instance, Cubana de Aviación uses Russian Tupolev Tu-204 planes. Cuba has imported some worth 12 million USD (378 million Roubles. 9.4 million Euros. 7.9 million UK Pounds) worth of power plant equipment from Russia in the last three years and has recently resumed purchase of Russian tractors. Russian tourists are also contributing to Cuba’s economic revival… some 90,000 holidaymakers from Russia visited the Island of Freedom last year.

19 May 2013

Aleksei Lyakhov

Lada Korotun

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_19/Russia-Cuba-ties-are-seeing-renaissance-official/

 

18 May 2013. Sergei Yolkin’s World. The Events of the Week in Cartoons… 13 to 17 May 2013

The Events of the Week in Cartoons… 13 to 17 May 2013

Sergei Yolkin

2013

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The original in Russian had the CIA guy saying “No-o-o-o” in English, with the other two saying “Het” (Nyet) in Russian… just thought that you’d like to know that…

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Sergei Yolkin summed up events that have been cooking for some time… the USA eliminated the Russian ice hockey team in the quarter-finals of World Cup, the FSB nicked a CIA agent in Moscow for espionage, and the maintenance man will turn off the hot water.

17 May 2013

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/caricature/20130517/937915697.html

Russia “Outs” Alleged Moscow CIA Station Chief… “Unprecedented” CIA Moscow Chief Leak Puzzles Ex-Spies

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On Friday, the FSB publicly identified an individual it claims was the Moscow station chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as of late 2011… a move widely-seen as a breach of protocol in the intelligence community. A man identified as an FSB official named the alleged CIA station chief in an interview with state-run television, in which he gave new details about the agency’s highly-publicised detention of alleged American spy Ryan Fogle earlier this week. In the interview, the FSB official reiterated earlier claims that his agency explicitly asked the CIA to stop trying to recruit Russian security and intelligence officers. In late 2011, he added, the FSB formally warned the CIA station chief in Moscow, whom he identified by name, “In the event that provocative efforts to recruit employees of the Russian special services continue, the FSB … would take reciprocal measures against American intelligence officers”. The officer, his face blacked out, and voice altered, said that Fogle’s brief detention this week… reportedly preceded in January by the unpublicised ouster of another American diplomat suspected of spying… was made public because the CIA continued to disregard the warning.

The Daily Telegraph reported, “A diplomat of the same name [given by the FSB official] is listed as a Counsellor in the US Embassy in Moscow in the Autumn-Winter 2012-13 edition of a directory of foreign diplomatic, media, and business offices in the city”. It wasn’t clear whether the man identified as the station chief is still in Moscow. US Embassy officials weren’t immediately available for comment. On Friday, US State Department spokesman Jen Psaki told a news conference in Washington DC that she hadn’t seen the report and referred further questions to the CIA. On Friday afternoon, the CIA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

17 May 2013

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On Friday, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers and security experts told RIA-Novosti that Russia’s decision to identify a purported top American spy in the country is an “unprecedented” move in relations between Moscow and Washington with no clear indication of how the USA will react. Peter Earnest, who operated intelligence collection and covert operations in Europe and the Middle East during a 35-year career with the CIA, said, “Certainly, throughout the Cold War, and even after that, there was a practise of not naming the head of the [spy agencies] in the respective countries”. Earnest and other security experts said that the television interview in which a man identified as an FSB officer named an alleged CIA station chief in Moscow puzzled them.

In the interview with state-run television, the FSB officer explained that his agency detained purported US spy Ryan Fogle in Moscow earlier this week because a request in late 2011 to the purported station chief, whom he identified by name, to halt “provocative” CIA efforts to recruit Russian intelligence agents went unheeded. The Daily Telegraph reported, “A diplomat of the same name [given by the FSB official] is listed as a Counsellor in the US Embassy in Moscow in the Autumn-Winter 2012-13 edition of a directory of foreign diplomatic, media, and business offices in the city”. On Friday, neither the US State Department nor the CIA responded to requests for comment.

Melvin Goodman, who served as division chief and senior analyst at the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs in the 1970s and 1980s, said, “The leak of the purported spy’s name represents a serious breach in protocol. These things are usually done quietly”. He added that the release of the name was “unprecedented” in the history of American relations with Russia and the USSR. Goodman pointed up that the disclosure of a CIA operative’s name in such a fashion is typically a death knell for the agent’s career, saying, “He could stay operational clandestinely, but I don’t see how they could send him out under any cover”.

Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security services at New York University, called the naming of the alleged station chief a “definite escalation” in the wake of Fogle’s brief detention and subsequent eviction from Russia, where he served as a third secretary in the political section at the US embassy. Galeotti told RIA-Novosti, “It’s almost as if the Russians are inviting the Americans to respond, but as it is, they seem to have Washington off balance”.

Earnest and Goodman both said that without the full picture of the circumstances surrounding Fogle’s detention and the public naming of the purported station chief, it’s difficult to predict how Washington might respond. Goodman said that if Russia’s reaction was indeed precipitated by CIA operatives’ aggressive attempts to recruit Russian intelligence officers, Washington “may just decide to let it go, but without knowing what some of the operational details are, I’d hesitate to speculate on this”.

It wasn’t the first time that the name of an alleged CIA station chief was publicly disclosed in recent years. In 2010 and early 2011, American officials accused Pakistani authorities of leaking the name of two CIA station chiefs in Islamabad to the country’s news media within five months. However, Earnest, the founding executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, noted that Washington’s relationship with Pakistan is considerably different than its relationship with Russia is, adding that there’s no formal protocol dictating how countries should respond in these cases. “It’s very situational, and the fact that you and I and the public don’t know what occasioned the takedown of Fogle means we don’t know what the signal [from Russia] was. That makes it doubly-hard to know the signal of this latest development is. It sort of deepens the mystery”.

Goodman, who spent 24 years as a CIA analyst specialising in Soviet affairs, said the spy spat surprised him given public overtures from both countries in recent weeks indicating they were interested in cooperating on the investigation of last month’s Boston Marathon bombings and ending the civil war in Syria, saying, “This past week suggests that something else is going on”.

18 May 2013 (MSK)

Carl Schreck

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130517/181209758/Russia-Outs-Alleged-Moscow-CIA-Station-Chief.html

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130518/181212155/Unprecedented-CIA-Moscow-Chief-Leak-Puzzles-Ex-Spies.html