A
real Cold War drama – wait for the tit-for-tat!
The
CNN edition questions whether money, wigs, letters compises prima
fasciae evidence and the Guardian says the photo is “purporting”
to be Ryan Fogle – LOL
The secret war against Russia being waged by the West, however, is no joke. For more background on this see these interviews about Operation Gladio B with Sibel Edmonds.
NOTE: I have added photos to the original Guardian story.
The secret war against Russia being waged by the West, however, is no joke. For more background on this see these interviews about Operation Gladio B with Sibel Edmonds.
NOTE: I have added photos to the original Guardian story.
Russia
to expel US diplomat accused of spying
Ryan
Fogle, accused of trying to recruit Russian agent for the CIA, had
'spy arsenal' of wigs and glasses, say officials
14
May, 2013
Russia
has said it will expel a US diplomat accused of working as a spy
after he was arrested while trying to recruit a Russian agent for the
CIA, in an elaborate raid that revealed the American was carrying a
bizarre arsenal of suspected spying equipment.
Ryan
Fogle, the third secretary at the US embassy in Moscow, was paraded
in footage aired on state-run television after being detained late on
Monday night by officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB), a
successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
He
stands accused of being a CIA spy and was declared persona non grata
by the foreign ministry on Tuesday .
"A classic spy arsenal was discovered, as well as a large sum of money that doesn't just expose a foreign agent caught red-handed, but also raises serious questions for the American side," the ministry said. "Such provocative actions in the spirit of the cold war in no way help to strengthen mutual trust."
Fogle was said to be carrying two wigs, three pairs of glasses, a compass and map of Moscow, as well as a knife, lighter, stacks of €500 notes and his US embassy ID.
Russia Today, an English-language TV channel run by the Kremlin, also revealed the contents of an alleged letter addressed to the Russian recruit.
It
begins: "Dear friend, This is a down-payment from someone who is
very impressed with your professionalism and who would greatly
appreciate your co-operation in the future." It goes on to offer
$100,000 "to discuss your experience, expertise and
co-operation" as well as $1m "for long-term co-operation".
It
then instructs the recruit on how to open a Gmail account, before
signing off with "your friends". The letter, wigs, and
immediate release of footage of the raid to state-run television like
Russia Today elicited widespread confusion.
The
scandal comes at an awkward time in US-Russia relations. On one hand,
the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly blamed the US
for fomenting discontent with his government, with officials going so
far as to accuse the state department of funding opposition
protesters. On the other, Moscow and Washington have been seeking to
strengthen co-operation after the attack on the Boston marathon,
suspected to have been carried out by two men with roots in Russia's
troubled North Caucasus region.
It
also comes less than a week after John Kerry, the US secretary of
state, visited Moscow to help end the war in Syria. He was
accompanied by Robert Mueller, the FBI director, who held a rare
meeting with his Russian counterpart. In Washington, a state
department spokesman said: "We can confirm that an officer at
our US embassy in Moscow was briefly detained and was released."
They declined to comment further. The foreign ministry summoned the
US ambassador, Michael McFaul, for a meeting on Wednesday.
In
the video released by the FSB, a plain-clothed officer, his face
distorted for the camera, is shown peeling a grey cap and blond wig
off Fogle's head, before marching him to a car. Fogle is then shown
seated, stone-faced, inside an FSB questioning site with three
unidentified Americans, as a Russian official accuses him of trying
to recruit a Russian intelligence officer involved in anti-terrorism
efforts in the North Caucasus.
"At
first, we didn't believe this could happen, because you very well
know that lately the FSB has been actively helping the investigation
of the Boston bombs," the official says. He goes on to lecture
the group about US-Russia relations, and aims to increase
co-operation following telephone talks between Putin and US President
Barack Obama.
"Understandings
were reached about co-operation," the Russian says. "And on
this background, when relations are being strengthened between the
countries, an American diplomat commits a government crime against
the Russian Federation."
In
a rare statement, the FSB said Fogle's alleged attempt to recruit a
Russian agent was not unique. "Lately, American intelligence has
made multiple attempts to recruit employees of Russian law
enforcement organs and special agencies, which have been detected and
monitored by FSB counter-intelligence," it said.
The
US has been at pains to reconstruct the six months that Tamerlan
Tsarnaev, accused of carrying out the Boston bombing and subsequently
killed in a shootout with police, spent in Dagestan, a volatile
republic in Russia's south in 2012.
In
2011, Russia had warned the FBI about Tsarnaev but, according to US
officials cited by the Wall Street Journal, refused to respond to
requests for information.
The
bizarre details of the raid to capture Fogle recalled the "spy
rock" scandal of 2006, when Russia said it had caught British
spies "red-handed" using a fake rock fitted able to
transmit classified data. Britain initially laughed off the scandal
as absurd, but early last year, Jonathan Powell, former chief of
staff to then prime minister Tony Blair, admitted it was true. He
called the spy rock "embarassing". "They had us bang
to rights."
The
Fogle scandal comes three years after the US broke up a sleeper cell
of 10 Russian spies and expelled them via a dramatic swap at Vienna
airport. The ring's most famous spy, Anna Chapman, has gone on to
have a successful career as a TV host and Kremlin cheerleader at
home.
It
was unclear whether the US would respond with a tit-for-tat
expulsion, coming as the scandal does amid concerted US, UK and
Israeli efforts to convince Russia to drop support for Bashar
al-Assad. Last week, Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign
minister, agreed to call a conference aimed at helping end the war.
Putin
was meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in the
southern city of Sochi when news of the spy scandal broke.
Russian
officials tried to downplay the scandal, including Alexey Pushkov,
head of the Duma's international affairs committee and one of
government's loudest US critics. "The spy scandal around the
American diplomat will be, I think, fleeting," Pushkov tweeted.
"And it won't bother the Lavrov-Kerry negotiations. But it won't
help the atmosphere."
Here
is RT's version
'Russia fights back in US shadow war against it'
RT
Promises
of millions, a new face and detailed instructions on a double-agent
conspiracy in Moscow. Bearing the hallmarks of a Cold War spy
thriller, Russia's counterintelligence agency says it caught a CIA
officer trying to flip a Russian operative. Brian Becker from the
ANSWER coalition thinks the US is waging an undercover war against
Moscow
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