Page, Jeremy. "Analysis: A Shot across Western Bows." Times (London), 23 Jan. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]Materials arranged chronologically.
Page, Jeremy. "Analysis: A Shot across Western Bows." Times (London), 23 Jan. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
"The timing of the release of the story [of a fake rock packed with surveillance equipment] on state television is very telling. The Russian Parliament has recently passed legislation requiring all of Russia's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to register with a new regulatory body.... The crucial allegation in the [television] documentary ... was that one of the British diplomats involved in this spying ring was personally signing off grants for NGOs. It was a tenuous link, but the intended message was very clear: he's obviously a spy and he's passing NGOs Western money so that they can undermine the Russian state. It may seem simplistic..., but it has played very well in Russia."
Myers, Steven Lee. "Russia Says Britain Used a Fake Rock to Hide Spy Gear." New York Times, 24 Jan. 2006. [http://www.nytimes.com]
On 23 January 2006, "Russia accused four British diplomats of spying and linked some of their activities to the financing of prominent private organizations.... A grainy black-and-white video, broadcast on state television on [22 January 2006] and shown repeatedly again on [23 January 2006], was said to show a British diplomat picking up a fake rock that was said to conceal a communications device used to download and transmit classified information through hand-held computers."
Page, Jeremy, and Richard Beeston. "The 'British' Spy Operation Found Lurking under a Rock." Times (London), 24 Jan. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
At first glance, the grainy film aired on Moscow television on 22 January 2006 seems to show innocent behavior. But, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), what is seen is "Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service in action."
Four men are accused of being "spies working under cover at the British Embassy in Moscow. And the mysterious object [in the film] was a high-tech telecommunications device concealed inside a fake rock.... Passing agents could transmit secret information to this electronic dead letter box through a simple hand-held computer."
The television report "identified the four alleged spies as Marc Doe, a second secretary in the political section, Paul Crompton, a third secretary in the political section, and Christopher Pirt and Andrew Fleming, both researchers without diplomatic status. It also alleged that a Russian citizen who had contacts with the four had been detained and confessed to espionage."
Page, Jeremy. "Spies Collect More Toys as Cold War Turns to Hot Peace." Times (London), 25 Jan. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
"[I]f intelligence experts are correct,... Western spy agencies [are] step[ping] up their operations in Russia to a level not seen since the Soviet collapse.... Western intelligence services said last year that Russia had aggressively escalated its spying ... since President Putin... took power in 2000.... What is less widely publicised is that US and British intelligence have also been actively recruiting Russian-speaking agents in tandem with Russia’s growing economic and political clout."
Naughton, Philippe. "MI6 Agent Jailed in Moscow for Betraying Russian Spies." Times (London), 9 Aug. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/]
On 9 August 2006, "retired Russian intelligence officer, Col. Sergei Skripal, was sentenced to 13 years in jail ... for passing state secrets to Britain's MI6 and betraying dozens of Russian spies working in Europe in the late 1990s.... Russian officials did not spell out which branch of Russian intelligence Skripal worked for."
Anderson, Julie. "Return of the Chekists." C4ISR Journal 5, no. 9 (Oct. 2006): 44-46.
Aftergood, Steven. "Illuminating Russia's Main Directorate of Special Programs." Secrecy News (from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy), 15 Nov. 2006. [http://www.fas.org]
The Main Directorate of Special Programs (GUSP) is a "Russian security organization that was established as one of the various successors to the former KGB.... In a neat bit of detective work, the Open Source Center (OSC) ... noticed that new details of GUSP's internal structure could be gleaned from official badges sold by commercial vendors of military paraphernalia....
"Allen Thomson retrieved images of those telltale military insignia and combined them with other published material to produce 'A Sourcebook on the Russian Federation Main Directorate of Special Programs (GUSP)'" which is available at: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gusp.pdf.
Knight, Sam. "Fallout Spreads from Russian Spy Death ." Times (London), 24 Nov. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
The fallout from the suspicious death in London of the former KGB agent and Kremlin critic, Alexander Litvinenko, has "reached the highest levels" of the British government, as the Cobra Cabinet emergency committee, "Britain's top ministers and security officials[,] met to discuss the case." Scotland Yard has confirmed that traces of polonium-210, a highly toxic radioactive substance, have been "found in Litvinenko's urine."
Finn, Peter. "In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens: Putin Led Regrouping of Security Services." Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2006, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"Russia's intertwined political and business elites are increasingly populated with ... former intelligence agents who have personally proved themselves" to President Vladimir Putin. "At the same time, Putin has spearheaded the regrouping and strengthening of the country's security services." In particular, the Federal Security Service (FSB), headed by Putin in the 1990s, "has emerged as one of the country's most powerful and secretive forces, with an increasingly international mission."
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