11.09.08agentura.ru / covering the secret services and terrorism issues in russia andrei soldatov,...

11.09.08 Agentura.Ru / www.agentura.ru

Covering the secret services and terrorism issues in Russia

Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan,

Agentura.ru, Novaya Gazeta Russia


What Agentura.Ru is• Internet-project, started in 2000 by

community of journalists covering the secret services’ activity

• Intention – public oversight• Example – the Federation of American

Scientists (FAS), Secrecy project• Why FAS experience cannot be engaged in

Russia

Agentura.Ru technology:• To collect and systematize open sources /

documents, articles• To publish our own investigations with

cooperation with other media: Izvestia, Versiya, Moscow News, Ejednevny Journal, Novaya Gazeta


The main problems are focused:• In information gathering

• In getting comments

• In preparing stories for Russian media

• In ethic area - when the war with terrorists shifted to the low-intensity conflict

• In the Secret services’ response to publications

• Environment / Inside Media


In information gathering:There are four main Secret services in Russia: • Federal Security Service (FSB) – in charge of counterintelligence and

counterterrorism, • Federal Protection Service (FSO) – in charge of personal protection of

President and Government officials• GRU (Military intelligence) • SVR (Foreign Intelligence)Press-offices:• GRU has no press-office• FSO limits itself to responding only the demands for picturing inside

Kremlin • SVR –limits itself to commenting Cold War stories (before 1961)• FSB strategy: 1. No response to media requests even under threat of legal prosecution2. Cancel the practice to have journalists briefed by the Secret Services. FSB

found it’s better to have generals openly posted to the media.


Example: FSB informant story• In January 2008 Russian citizen

Novikov fled to Denmark came in office of Danish Broadcasting Corp. claiming he was FSB agent sent to opposition party United Civil Front. Danish colleagues asked us for help.

How to check this information?

• Novikov’s “debriefing”

• Checking inside FSB before publication

• Getting confirmation after publication


Getting commentsInterviews given by the Secret Services’ heads:• In 2007-8: Patrushev (FSB) – 6 (Argumenti i Facti and Rossiyskaya

Gazeta) + 1 film on RTR, Lebedev (SVR) - 0, Murov (FSO) - 0, Korabelnikov (GRU) – 0

• In fall 2007–spring 2008 we got new heads of SVR and FSB: 0 interviews.• Our experience: interview in presence of 10 advisers

The lack of former FSB/SVR/GRU officers willing to comment openly the secret services’ activity

• Result: We have to use former KGB officers, who lost their touch with the ground over twenty years ago.

The lack of security expert community• Despite the West, the war on terror in Russia didn’t become the reason to

establish the think tanks devoted to Security issues. Russian authorities were never interested in independent expertise.


Preparing stories for Russian media the law limits:

• It is forbidden to publish interview with terrorist, it’s forbidden even to mention the name of terrorist or extremist organisation without special words.

• There are limits to get access to the region of the North Caucasus – the system of accreditations

• There are limits to get access to the area of counterterrorist operation – it might be comparable with Israeli practice to use “closed military areas”

• Attempts to introduce the special courses for journalists called “Bastion”, and not to allow the access to the area of counterterrorist operation to the journalists who did not frequent these courses.


When the war with terrorists shifted to the low-intensity conflict: ethic problems Siege of Nalchik in 2005 – when devoted

Muslims become terrorists

• Media coverage before attack

• The problem of definition after the attacks

Hizb-ut-Tahrir – how to cover the activity of the prohibited party never used violence in Russia


The secret services’ response to publications: possible legal actions

• Accusations of information sponsorship of terrorism – the consequences for paper

• Accusations of extremism – usual methods for local authorities against journalists– Our experience: Nalchik

• Accusations of revealing of state secrets

• Our experience: – 2002. Consequences of reportage about Nord-Ost’s siege

– 2008. Consequences of interview with Tretyakov, former Russian intelligence colonel defected to US


Plot to reveal State Secrets (FSB favourite version)

1. Journalist looks for a secret owner in the Secret Services

2. He promises the officer to share the fee, thus forming criminal group

3. Journalist published story, got fee and shared it with the traitor

4. There are three evidences of crime: the criminal intention – to get the fee, the structure - criminal group, and the type of crime – revealing of secret

State secret owner

Newspaper / The fee

Journalist


Environment / To investigate and live in the same country:

• The legacy of Cold War: related level of secrecy higher than in the West and the huge number of former KGB/FSB officers in business and government structures.

• In some crucial points Russian secret services are comparable not with old KGB, but with some Mideast secret services – corruptive, brutal with terrorism suspects, and active with preventing so-called subversion. Sometimes journalist’s activity might be considered to be subversive.

• Covering the Secret Services’ activity is in decline. Few journalists who covered the First war and Second war in Chechnya keep working.

11.09.08agentura.ru / covering the secret services and terrorism issues in russia andrei soldatov,...

Documents

secret services response

main secret services

secret services heads

secret services activityresult

fsb strategy

fsb agent

patrushev fsb

ru technology