Georgia Claims To Have Broken Up Russian Spy Ring
The New York Times reports:
MOSCOW — Georgia’s Interior Ministry announced on Friday that it used a former Soviet officer to infiltrate Russia’s military intelligence service, uncovering dozens of covert agents working in Georgia.
The ministry named 13 people who have been charged with spying, of whom 6 are pilots in Georgia’s air force and 4 are Russian citizens. Most are suspected of passing on information about Georgia’s combat readiness, weapons purchases, communications and coordination with foreign armies.
Their names were uncovered when a double agent was given access to sensitive software and encryption codes used by the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence service, said Shota Utiashvili, head of analysis for the Georgian Interior Ministry.
A similar spy scandal in 2006 led relations between Russia and Georgia into a steep downward spiral. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday responded angrily, saying in a statement that “the Saakashvili regime suffers from chronic spy-mania fueled by anti-Russian sentiment.”
Konstantin I. Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee in the Duma, said the suspects “had no relationship to the intelligence services.”
“This is a very serious situation, and those who have undertaken this last provocation in Georgia should recall very clearly that Russia does not abandon her citizens when they are in trouble,” Mr. Kosachev told the Interfax news service.
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