Intelligence and secret services Intelligence and secret services around the world - Soviet Russia with its KGB, United States with CIA and NSA etc. A lot of interesing info! Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 1 4323

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Some problems 2007-11-08 04:56:00 I am sorry for the misbehaving menus in Internet Explorer browser - I will try to fix this as soon as possible, but for now, please use either "Topics" section or Sitemap (link below) to navigate through the site.SitemapLatest articles:Russian Spetsnaz hand-to-hand combat system - SystemaLithuanian intelligence agencies helped KGB’s Mitrokhin to escape to Great BritainSoviet Spetsnaz TacticsThe Ten Commandments of CounterintelligenceWeapons and equipment of Russian SpetsnazInterview with Robert Lou Benson, NSANew Light on Old SpiesThe Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70The theory and practice of Soviet intelligenceCIA's Role in the Study of UFOsThe Berlin tunnelSoviet use of Assassination and KidnappingExtrasensory agents in CIAInside look at espionage by former CIA and KGB agentsCIA code wordsOperation "Agate" ...

Russian Spetsnaz hand-to-hand combat system - Systema 2007-11-01 09:57:00 Systema is a term derived from the original Russian Systema of Hand-to-Hand Combat. More recently, as this style has become exported to western nations, it has become synonymous with Systema or Russian System of Martial Arts.Systema was developed by the early Cossacks, a highly trained paramilitary society, more than a thousand years ago, and historical record of this fighting style can be dated back to 948 A.D. For Centuries Russia had to repel invaders from the north, south, east and west, each of which brought to bear the peculiar martial skills, physical abilities and weapons of its culture. As a result, the need arose for a fighting style based on adaptability, instinct and ease of learning.From ancient ages the martial art of Russian warriors deserved worldwide recognition. Even then the Russian close fight inspired fear in the enemies. Ancient Russians were strong in the close fight and won even when all military rules said they could not win. Russian Plastoon Cossacks showed th ...

United States Department of Homeland Security 2007-11-01 09:34:00 The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), commonly known in the United States as Homeland Security, is a Cabinet department of the Federal Government of the United States with the responsibility of protecting the territory of the United States from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters.Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the Department of Homeland Security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. Its goal is to prepare for, prevent, and respond to domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism. On March 1, 2003, the DHS absorbed the now defunct United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and assumed its duties.With over 200,000 employees, DHS is the third largest cabinet department in the U.S. federal government after the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. Homeland security policy is coordinated at the White House by the Homela ...

Lithuanian intelligence agencies helped KGB’s Mitrokhin to escape to Great Britain 2007-10-17 03:11:00 Naxal Watch at his blog writes:The former archivist of the KGB of the USSR, Vasily Mitrokhin, left for the West on November 7, 1992 with his family through Lithuania from Riga, as it was reported earlier, and those Lithuanian intelligence agencies that helped him, Vilnius-based newspaper Lietuvos zinios reports. This information was confirmed also by the former Lithuanian Minister Audrius Butkevicius, who refused to expand on the details."Intelligence agencies of Lithuania did participate in the operation of transfer of Mitrokhin and his archive to Great Britain, this became one of most sensible impacts on the KGB during all the history of this most secret organization," the newspaper is quoting the former intelligence chief of the Ministry of Defense of Lithuania, colonel Virginius Cesnuliavicius as saying.News agency Interfax cites Cesnuliavicius that the Lithuanian security services engaged the operation under the initiative of the British MIS intelligence agents early in 1992. Acco ...

Soviet Spetsnaz Tactics 2007-09-21 12:29:00 Before spetsnaz units can begin active operations behind the enemy's lines they have to get there. The Soviet high command has the choice of either sending spetsnaz troops behind the enemy's lines before the outbreak of war, or sending them there after war has broken out. In the first case the enemy may discover them, realise that war has already begun and possibly press the buttons to start a nuclear war — pre-empting the Soviet Union. But if spetsnaz troops are sent in after the outbreak of war, it may be too late. The enemy may already have activated its nuclear capability, and then there will be nothing to put out of action in the enemy's rear: the missiles will be on their way to Soviet territory. One potential solution to the dilemma is that the better, smaller part of spetsnaz -the professional athletes — arrives before all-out war starts, taking extreme measures not to be discovered, while the standard units penetrate behind enemy lines after war has started.In every Sov ...

The Ten Commandments of Counterintelligence 2007-08-08 02:20:00 A Never-Ending NecessityThe need for counterintelligence (CI) has not gone away, nor is it likely to. The end of the Cold War has not even meant an end to the CI threat from the former Soviet Union. The foreign intelligence service of the new democratic Russia, the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki Rossii (SVRR), has remained active against us. It was the SVRR that took over the handling of Aldrich Ames from its predecessor, the KGB, in 1991. It was the SVRR that ran CIA officer Harold James Nicholson against us from 1994 to 1996. It was the SVRR that was handling FBI special agent Earl Pitts when he was arrested for espionage in 1996. It was the SVRR that planted a listening device in a conference room of the State Department in Washington in the summer of 1999. And it was the SVRR that was handling FBI special agent Robert Hanssen when he was arrested on charges of espionage in February 2001.The Russians are not alone. There have been serious, well-publicized concerns about Chinese e ...

Weapons and equipment of Russian Spetsnaz 2007-07-18 10:58:00 From Viktor Suvorov, "Spetsnaz. The Story Behind the Soviet SAS" (Source)The standard issue of weapons to a spetsnaz is a sub-machine gun, 400 rounds of ammunition, a knife, and six hand grenades or a light single-action grenade-launcher. During a drop by parachute the sub-machine gun is carried in such a way as not to interfere with the main (or the reserve) parachute opening correctly and promptly, and not to injure the parachute on landing. But the large number of fastenings make it impossible for the parachutist to use the gun immediately after landing. So he should not be left defenceless at that moment, the parachutist also carries a P-6 silent pistol. After my escape to the West I described this pistol to Western experts and was met with a certain scepticism. Today a great deal that I told the experts has been confirmed, and examples of the silent pistol have been found in Afghanistan. (Jane's Defence Weekly has published some excellent photographs and a description of this unu ...

Interview with Robert Lou Benson, NSA 2007-07-18 10:35:00 Interviewer: Tell me in your own words about the sabotage school in Barcelona, during the Civil War. What was that really?Lou Benson: Well the sabotage school was apparently supervised by the KGB which was then called the NKVD.Interviewer: And what was the point of it?Lou Benson: Well, this was in the course of the Spanish Civil War; the Russians were supporting the loyalists. The patriotic or rather the legally elected Government of Spain in 1936 there was a rising against the Republic by General Franco's Forces. And the Civil War resulted. There was an intervention by the left and the right, so to speak. The Soviets came in on the side of the Republic, and the Nazis and the Italians on the side of what became called the Nationalists, Franco's Government.Interviewer: If the KGB were basically running the sabotage school in Barcelona?Lou Benson: Yes.Interviewer: What was their gain? What was the point?Lou Benson: Well, it was, I mean, to fight Franco's Forces, and that was one techn ...

Demonizing Putin: The Summit in Kennebunkport 2007-07-15 08:57:00 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/demonizing-putin-the-summit-in-kennebunkport/Presidents Bush and Putin concluded their brief summit in Kennebunkport, Maine without resolving any of the main issues. Bush seeks Putin’s help to pressure Iran into giving up its nuclear enrichment program and Putin wants Bush to abandon his plans to deploy the US Missile Defense System in Czechoslovakia and Poland. No progress was made on either topic.Russia and the United States are now more politically divided than any time since the breakup of the Soviet Union. In fact, following the meeting in Maine, first deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, blasted Washington in the blistering rhetoric of the Cold War era:“They are trying to push us into knocking heads with Europe… in order to create a new dividing line, a New Berlin Wall,” bawled Ivanov. “It is obvious that continuing with the plans and carrying them out by placing rockets in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic will present an obvi ...

Tensions rise after Putin dumps Tensions rise after Putin dumps key arms treatykey arms treaty 2007-07-15 08:55:00 http://www.independent.ie/world-news/tensions-rise-after-putin-dumps-key-arms-treaty-1037918.htmlRUSSIA engaged the West in a new round of brinkmanship yesterday when Vladimir Putin effectively tore up a vital treaty designed to end the threat of war in Europe.In a chilling message to his adversaries, the Russian president signed a decree suspending Moscow's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, a move that will let Russia mass tanks on Europe's border for the first time in 15 years.Coming amidst the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War, the announcement - though expected - prompted immediate consternation at Nato headquarters."Nato regrets this decision by the Russian Federation," said spokesman James Appathurai. "It is a step in the wrong direction. The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of Euro stability."Russia's withdrawal from the treaty represents a significant element of Mr Putin's so-called "asymmetrical ...

'Russian Diary' paints chilling picture of Putin 2007-07-15 08:54:00 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,685193179,00.htmlIt is seldom discussed that since Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia in 2000, 13 journalists have been killed there. Anna Politkovskaya was one of them, gunned down in a contract killing in Moscow on Oct. 7, 2006. Fortunately, she had already finished "A Russian Diary" when she died.Recently, I reviewed a book about the life and murder of another Russian, Alexander Litvenenko, a former KGB agent who defected to Great Britain and started protesting the tactics employed by Putin. Litvenenko was killed in England, the first Russian dissident to be murdered outside Russia. He was the victim of polonium poisoning, and he died a slow and miserable death in less than a month. He had been investigating the Politkovskaya murder at the time his own life was snuffed out.Both victims considered Putin to be a total dictator whose aim from the time he took power was to assemble all aspects of Russian society directly under his thumb. Those, ...

London barman describes tea thought to have killed Litvinenko 2007-07-15 08:50:00 http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1514501620070715LONDON (Reuters) - A London hotel barman has described throwing away the remains of the tea believed to have killed former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died last year from radioactive polonium poisoning, a newspaper said on Sunday."When I poured the remains of the teapot into the sink, the tea looked more yellow than usual and was thicker -- it looked gooey," the Sunday Telegraph quoted barman Norberto Andrade as saying in what it called the first account by someone present."I scooped it out of the sink and threw it into the bin. I was so lucky I didn't put my fingers into my mouth or scratch my eye as I could have got the poison inside me."Britain accuses former Russian state security agent Andre Lugovoy of poisoning Litvinenko with polonium at the Millennium Hotel last November and has threatened punitive steps following Moscow's refusal to extradite him.Media have reported Litvinenko was poisoned with tea. Andrade s ...

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations - part 6 2007-07-15 08:16:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Soviet MotivesAs is often true of Russian policy, the objectives to be served by the surfacing of Soviet espionage activities abroad are not immediately evident. The reasons for the adoption of such a policy are difficult to disentangle. Perhaps the interplay of personal ambitions and jealousies among Party and government leaders has played its part. Although no evidence on the point is available, this unusual Soviet frankness may reflect the growing influence of Alexander Shelepin, former chief of the KGB who has played an increasingly prominent role in Soviet affairs since the overthrow of Khrushchev. It may be assumed, in any case, that the decision to admit to the Soviet people that their government also engages in actions hitherto credited only to bourgeois and fascist states was not lightly reached on the spur of the moment. Undoubtedly it was made at the highest Party levels, after lengthy and possibly acrimonious discussion. Party leaders must ...

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations - part 5 2007-07-15 08:14:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Other ChekistsFew other officials of state security have been honored with biographies. I. V. Viktorov's rather sparse and matter-of-fact biography of Mikhail Sergeyevich Kedrov, an old Bolshevik and associate of Dzerzhinskiy, is unusual in that it covers in part the period of the great purges. According to Viktorov, Kedrov's son Igor and a friend, one Volodya Golubev, both employed by state security, discovered in early 1939 that Beriya and his associates were betraying the USSR in the interest of Hitler. The two young Chekists, after consulting the elder Kedrov, who by then was out of the service, decided to make the facts known to Stalin and the Party Control Commission. When the young men were arrested, as they anticipated being, M S. Kedrov was to approach Stalin, reveal the facts of the matter, and call Stalin's attention to a letter accusing Beriya that he (Kedrov ) had written to Dzerzhinskiy in 1921.But Igor Kedrov and Golubev were arrested in late F ...

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations - part 4 2007-07-15 08:12:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Dzerzhinskiy For several decades the Soviet regime has endeavored to justify the counterintelligence activity of its security service, calling it the "punishing sword of the Revolution," the defender of the Soviet nation and state against foreign and domestic enemies. Its intimate relationship to the party leadership was deliberately blurred; its full role in intra-party struggles for power has been concealed.The participation of the security service in these struggles and the purges they brought forth, events that are well remembered by the Soviet people, made difficult the task of investing it with any sort of glamour. In practice it was necessary to concentrate on the earliest period of its history, the period of revolution, civil war, and early post-revolutionary years, when it was headed by Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, the Polish revolutionary idealist, friend and associate of Lenin, who died before Stalin began his purges. The Dzerzhinskiy period of th ...