Russia’s Federal Security Service has publicly revealed the identity of a man it calls the CIA station chief in Moscow, in what experts say is a serious breach of intelligence protocol.
By Tom Parfitt, Moscow
3:13PM BST 17 May 2013
Speaking to Russian media about the recent capture of an alleged CIA spy in a wig in Moscow, an FSB spokesman named the CIA “rezident”, or station chief, in the capital.
A diplomat of the same name is listed as a Counsellor in the US Moscow embassy in the autumn-winter 2012-13 edition of a directory of foreign diplomatic, media and business offices in the city.
The naming of the top CIA figure working in Russia is likely to provoke an angry response in Washington, and damage important bilateral links in the struggle against global terrorism.
It is common practise for US and Russian intelligence agencies to identify to each other their top officials in their respective embassies, but they are not identified publicly.
The exposure appears to be a calculated snub to Washington, a month after the two countries agreed to share intelligence over the Boston Marathon bombing, which was allegedly carried out by two men with roots in Russia’s North Caucasus region.
Earlier this week, the FSB paraded on state television an alleged CIA spy, Ryan Fogle, whom it said it had captured in Moscow as he tried to recruit a counter-terrorism expert from Russian intelligence with experience in the North Caucasus, where there is a determined Islamist insurgency.
Mr Fogle, who was allegedly carrying a spy kit including a spare wig, dark glasses and a compass, was said to have been working under the guise of third secretary in the US Moscow embassy’s political section.
Russian media speculated that the CIA had tasked Mr Fogle with learning more about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead bomber who visited relatives in Chechnya and Dagestan last year.
An FSB spokesman told the Interfax news agency on Friday that the US had “crossed a red line” with Mr Fogle’s actions, because the CIA had already been warned to stop trying to recruit Russian citizens.
“In October 2011, the FSB officially warned the station chief of the CIA in Moscow, …… that in the case of continuing provocative recruitment actions with regard to employees of the Russian special services, the FSB would take symmetrical actions with regard to CIA officers,” the spokesman said.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Moscow was not immediately available for comment on Friday afternoon.
Mr Fogle was released to US representatives after his detention. The Russian foreign ministry said he would be expelled.
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