BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

08/08/2007

Russian FSB, Belarus KGB joint collegium meet in Pskov

Russia's Pskov oblast papers have been modestly mentioning stay of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev in the city of Pskov last week. However, some information snatches certify to the fact of a meeting held in Pskov between the FSB head and the new chairman of the Belarus's State Security Committee (KGB) Yury Zhadobin. It is emphatic that one of Pskov papers has reported on the exchange of opinions between the two secret services chiefs under headline 'Without unnecessarys eyes and ears'. In fact, Patrushev and Zhadobin have acted as co-chairmen of a joint collegium of the Russian FSB and Belarus KGB, according to Pskov Information Agency (PAI).

Yury Zhadobin, a career military officer with no prior experience in the KGB, assumed the post of the Belarus KGB chief following dismissal on July 17 - just days after the KGB publicly boasted of its success in uncovering a spy ring - of the previous KGB chairman Stepan Sukhorenko. Zhadobin is seen as a transitional figure that will most likely be replaced in the fall, when Lukashenka is expected to decide on a new configuration for Belarus's security services, according to the Radio Liberty Belarus Service.

Many Russian and Belarusian publications confirmed that the recent spy scandal was provoked by Russia. According to the Moscow-based daily Kommersant, a Russian national who was part of the ring spying on a Russian-Belarusian joint air-defense system and allegedly supplying the secrets about Belarusian and Russian defense interests to Poland, confessed to the FSB, which passed the information on to the KGB in Minsk. The Pskov meeting between the heads of the friendly secret services was the first after the purges, initiated by President Alexander Lukashenko.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1361