Spy Chief: West Trying To Crumble Russia

[Purveyor]

Source: CBS NEWS

(AP) Russia's security chief said that Western spies were working to weaken and break up the country and singled out British agents as the most intrusive, according to an interview published Wednesday.

Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency, also claimed that foreign spies were working to foment discontent in Russia in the run-up to December's parliamentary elections and the presidential vote next spring.

Patrushev is a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin, and his comments reflect deeply entrenched suspicions of Western intentions in the Kremlin's inner circle amid a cold spell in Russia's relations with the West. Putin himself is a 16-year KGB veteran and former chief of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.

"Politicians thinking in the categories of the Cold War still retain their influence in a number of Western nations," Patrushev told the weekly Argumenty i Fakty. "They have claimed credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they are hatching plans aimed at dismembering Russia. They are viewing special services and their organizations as an efficient instrument for their implementation."

Patrushev said that foreign spies were focusing their efforts on gathering information related to Russia's elections. "They are trying to influence protest feelings and demonstrations in Russia."


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/10/world/main3351530.shtml

[TheWraith]

1. Russia seems to be doing a fine job crumbling without external help.

But "weakening" and "breaking up" are the opposite of what needs to be worried about.

[BearSquirrel2]

2. Old Hitler Script ...

OK, so this is an old script. Replace "Jews" with "Capitalists" with "Terrorists" with "Westerners". Same old story. I'm pretty sure that the Russians are probably hip to this.