Edward Lucas - Deception

25 ‘ Nelzya dopustit, chtobi voini prevratilis v torgovtsev’ (‘We must not allow warriors to become traders’) Kommersant, 9 October 2007 http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/812840

26 The episode was well analysed here by the Jamestown Foundation’s Jonas Bernstein, ‘Shvartsman’s Description of Siloviki Business Practices – Truth Or Fiction?’ Eurasia Daily Monitor , 7 December 2007 http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=33224and in ‘Former Russian Spies Now Prominent in Business’ by Andrew Kramer, New York Times 18 December 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/business/worldbusiness/18kgb.html

27 The survey is by the INDEM thinktank and available (in Russian) here: Sostoyanie bitovoi korruptsii v Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State of Domestic Corruption in the Russian Federation) http://www.indem.ru/corrupt/doklad_cor_INDEM_FOM_2010.pdf

28 See for example ‘A Stain On Mr Clean’ by Christian Caryl and Mark Hosenball. Newsweek, 3 September 2001 http://www.newsweek.com/2001/9/2/a-stain-on-mr-clean.html

29 Die Gangster aus dem Osten (The Gangsters from the East) by Jürgen Roth (Europa Verlag, 2004). It urgently needs updating and publication in English. Also worth reading is Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob has Invaded America by Robert Friedman (Berkeley, 2002).

30 In the course of another investigation, I tracked down a foreign engineer who had been involved in a commercial court case against one of the ‘four’ – in those days much less powerful – involving a broken contract. In the course of the litigation, he had uncovered compelling evidence of links between this individual and organised crime. This led to a prompt settlement of the case when he threatened to disclose it. When I approached him, he was long retired and running a provincial hotel. He said that it was more than his life was worth to share his research with me. A good example of the tangled, fascinating but inconclusive investigative reporting surrounding the regime’s business interests comes from ‘Factories, tanks, offshore firms and neighbours’ by Roman Anin, Novaya Gazeta, 22 April 2010 http://en.novayagazeta.ru/data/2011/42/2.html

1 For example my article ‘Walk on the dark side’ about the criminal Russian IT company RBN. The Economist , 30 August 2007 http://www.economist.com/node/9723768

2 ‘Reset Regret: Moral Leadership Needed to Fix US–Russian Relations’ by Ariel Cohen and Donald Jensen, 30 June 2011. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/6/Reset-Regret-Moral-Leadership-Needed-to-Fix-US-Russian-Relations

3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/247712and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/1/wikileaks-cable-spain-russian-mafia

4 A well-sourced account of this comes from the Jerusalem-based journalist Gil Yaron, writing (in German) in the Salzburger Nachrichten. http://search.salzburg.com/articles/5847190. A Finnish connection in the story remains to be investigated.

5 See for example this speech by Jonathan Evans, director of the Security Service (MI5) here http://www.societyofeditors.co.uk/page-view.php?pagename=. The Keynote Speech and the German Verfassungsschutz (Office for Constitutional Protection) annual reports, for example (in German) http://www.verfassungsschutz.de/download/SHOW/vsbericht_2009.pdf‘ Putins Konjunkturprogramm: Russische Agenten spionieren deutsche Energie-Unternehmen aus’ (‘Putin’s growth programme – Russian agents spy on German energy companies’) by Dirk Banse, Welt am Sonntag, 21 June 2009. http://www.welt.de/wams_print/article3965455/Putins-Konjunkturprogramm-Russische-Agenten-spionieren-deutsche-Energie-Unternehmen-aus.html

6 Chiefly in chapter 3.

7 Londongrad – From Russia with Cash; The Inside Story of the Oligarchs by Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley (Fourth Estate, 2009).

8 The official Air Accidents Investigation Branch report can be found here http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Agusta_A109E,_G-PWER.pdfwith a small but interesting correction here http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Agusta%20A109E,%20G-PWER%20Correction%209–5.pdf

9 A comprehensive summary can be found here ‘Russia’s intelligence attack: The Anna Chapman danger’, by Peter Hennessy and Richard Knight, 17 August 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10986334. A link on the site plays the programme.

10 In mid 2008 I became aware of this story and made persistent enquiries about it. Britain’s Ministry of Defence press office repeatedly denied that any such incident had taken place. The story was then leaked. ‘Russian Nuke Jet Buzzes Hull’ by Tom Newton-Dunn, Sun, 30 August 2008 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1749464.ece

11 ‘Fighter jets intercept Russian bombers after flying into Dutch airspace’ 8 June 2011 http://channel6newsonline.com/2011/6/fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-after-flying-into-dutch-airspace/.

12 This WikiLeaks cable gives a flavour of the subsequent discussion at NATO http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=9USNATO581

13 Rosja ćwiczyła atak atomowy na Polskę (‘Russia practises a nuclear attack on Poland’) by Michał Krzymowski, Wprost (Warsaw), 31 October 2009 http://www.wprost.pl/ar/176722/Rosja-cwiczyla-atak-atomowy-na-Polske/. See also Sõnad ja Teras (‘Words and Steel’) by Kaarel Kaas, Postimees (Tallinn), 19 September 2009 http://www.postimees.ee/165608/kaarel-kaas-sonad-ja-teras/and ‘Russian Military Thinking and Threat Perception: A Finnish View’, by Stefan Forss http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/ressources/n5_13112009.pdf

14 See for example ‘Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of US’ by Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 4 August 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/8/5/world/5patrol.htmland ‘Russian subs stalk Trident in echo of Cold War’ by Thomas Harding, Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/7969017/Russian-subs-stalk-Trident-in-echo-of-Cold-War.html

15 No documentary evidence exists for the promise. If it was made (or understood) orally, it was to a state that no longer exists, under duress and without consultation with the other countries concerned. Moreover, Russia can hardly argue both that it is no threat to its neighbours, and that it has a right to veto their security choices. See Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era by the late Ronald Asmus (Columbia University Press, 2002).

16 A Washington Post investigation in 2010 ‘Top Secret America’ highlighted the unmanageable size and complexity of the nation’s intelligence agencies. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

17 ‘Polish FM in WikiLeaks: Germany is Russia’s Trojan Horse’, by Andrew Reitman, EU Observer , 16 September 2011 http://euobserver.com/24/113652

18 Welt am Sonntag, ibid.

19 ‘Time to Shove Off’, The Economist , 10 September 2011 http://www.economist.com/node/21528596

20 This is actually the wrong acronym, as FAPSI has been incorporated into the FSB. http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/fapsi/index.html

21 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/38125772by P. King.

22 As reported here: ‘Seen from on high’, Europe.view column, The Economist 3 April, 2008 http://www.economist.com/node/10950261. The Inmarsat satellite was repositioned in 2009. Russia could in theory have built the station in the Kaliningrad exclave – but any data sent back to the rest of Russia would have been vulnerable. Modern interception technology is able to obtain not only microwave and radio transmissions, but also data carried on seabed fibre-optic cables, by means of a ‘collar’ placed at a point where the cable curves.