Thursday, October 12, 2006

The Insider's Guide to Georgia-Russia Espionage Case

An informative FAQ on the most recent nation-2-nation espionage case, David vs Goliath aka Georgia's counter-intelligence services spotting Russian military personnel performing HUMINT reconnaissance under Russia's umbrella. It answers the following questions :

- Russian spies in Georgia? I thought some of the folks in Atlanta looked a bit suspicious...
- So what's the problem this week?
- And did Georgia back down?
- What were four Russian military officers doing in Tblisi in the first place?
- Anything else they're unhappy about?
- Is the situation likely to escalate any further?

What happened actually? Russia is very interested in its post-soviet era "satellites" and their ongoing and upcoming activities with NATO, and yes, the U.S interest in breaking the ice by organizing various military exercises, even worse from Russia's point of view - opening military bases and a country's airspace to the U.S Air Force. Russia was basically underestimating Georgi's capabilities, sensitivity to the reconnaissance, and courage to go public with the findings if any, and later on acted as a wounded 800 pound gorilla feeling embarresed.

Meanwhile, who's been killing all these journalists -- 42 since 1992 -- acting as the society's watchdog, and was Anna Politkovskaya assassination on purposely done on Vladimir Putin's birthday to destabilize the public opinion on the government's capability to solve the case, and open up countless speculations on the similarities between Georgi Markov's case who was also killed on a puppet's birthday?

It's the typical Fox Mulder situation, he knows everything about you, you know everything about him, do something to him and make him a hero of a cause, so I feel organized crime isn't interested in Russia's social accountability and is destabilizing the process.

Related posts and resources:
Prosecuting Defectors and Appointing Insiders
A top level espionage case in Greece
India's Espionage Leaks
Intelligence
Espionage

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