Kremlin arrests American ‘spy’ in Moscow
US state department demands access to citizen detained on suspicion of spying in Russian capital
AN AMERICAN citizen has been detained in Moscow on suspicion of spying, Russia’s FSB state security service announced yesterday.
The FSB said the American had been detained on Dec 28 but it gave no details of the nature of his alleged espionage activities. The Russians said he was facing criminal charges.
Russia’s state news agency, TASS, named him as Paul Whelan, but the American authorities have yet to confirm his identity.
“Russia’s obligations under the Vienna Convention require them to provide consular access,” a state department spokesman said. “We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it.”
Under Russian law, espionage can carry between 10 and 20 years in prison. Alexander Mikhailov, a retired FSB officer, said the arrest reflected the effectiveness of Russian counter-intelligence. “The service wouldn’t have made this information public unless it had solid evidence,” he told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Earlier this month Maria Butina, a Russian national, pleaded guilty in a US court to a conspiracy charge in a deal with prosecutors, and admitted to working with a top Russian official to infiltrate American conservative activist groups and politicians as an agent for Moscow.
She faces six months in prison, most likely followed by deportation.
The Russian government, while strenuously denying that Butina is a Russian agent, has organised a social media campaign to attempt to win her release.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, used his annual press conference, on Dec 20, to warn of potential repercussions from her arrest.
“The law of retaliation states, ‘An eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth’,” he said.
But, he added: “We will not arrest innocent people simply to exchange them for someone else later on.”
In the past, the United States has accused Russia of waging a campaign to harass American officers serving overseas. The Washington Post reported that Russians had slashed diplomats’ tyres, entered their homes at night and even followed their children as they travelled to school. US officials also said that a diplomat was attacked by a Russian guard just outside of the US embassy complex in Moscow.
The US government has sanctioned the FSB over cyber activities, and earlier this year, the treasury department imposed sanctions on a firm controlled by the FSB for conducting cyberattacks against the United States.
Furthermore, the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, has been accused of attempting to influence foreign elections – including the 2016 US election. The GRU also played a key role in the Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine, and the Salisbury nerveagent poisonings.
The FSB, however, does have some long-standing cooperation with US intelligence on issues such as counterterrorism. Earlier this year, Mike Pompeo, the then CIA director, is reported to have met with Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, along with the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, or SVR.