British shit

The new espionage scandal blew up a warming in Russian-British relations outlined. How plausible are the accusations brought by the TNK-VR Management employee Ilya Zaslavsky and his brother Alexander, the chairman of the "Club of Graduates" of the British Council?

If we are talking about such a serious article as espionage, even if industrial, then it is not clear why the detainees were left under a notorure subscription, because we prefer to close the suspects and much less serious crimes in the pre -trial detention center. Upon closer examination, it turns out that the Zaslavsky brothers are charged with an illegal collection of closed commercial information in favor of a number of foreign oil and gas companies in order to obtain competitive advantages over Russian competitors, including in the CIS countries. ”

According to the meager messages of federal television channels, they were accused of receiving a document dedicated to the development strategy of the Russian oil and gas industry until 2020, as well as that they found business cards of foreign military attache in Moscow. In addition, according to the FSB, which conducts an investigation, during a search in the company and in apartments, the brothers were discovered and seized material evidence confirming the fact of industrial espionage. These evidence included copies of documents of state power and management of the Russian Federation, reports and analytical notes related to subsoil use, according to preliminary assessment, classified as commercial secrets, as well as business cards of employees of foreign military departments and the CIA.

It was also mentioned that some documents contain the bar "for official use." What exactly the documents were seized, we will probably find out soon, if we find out at all. But it is alarming that in the list of evidence, our Chekists included business cards of military attache. If the possession of such cards is a sign of espionage, then the author of this article, which received a dozen and a half at different tricks, can also be recorded in spies. As for the statement about the business cards of the CIA agents, this generally looks like a bad joke. Employees of the department with headquarters in Langley about their belonging to him on business cards, as a rule, do not report - and in any case they do not give such cards to the recruited suppliers of information. And the Zaslavsky brothers probably did not know and now they don’t know which of the American diplomats they met at different times, in fact, works for the CIA (I will recall the Zaslavsky, American citizens). But the FSB officers can easily declare, without bothering themselves with evidence, but referring only to foggy "operational information" that one or another diplomat is actually an employee of the CIA. So the accusation of espionage is almost ready.

As for the development strategy of the oil and gas industry for the long-term period, this is rather a document of bureaucratic and propaganda than containing real valuable information. It’s just that we have a Soviet fashion for long -term planning, and the officials were reported. Such a document can be safely published in the open press.

What is really secret in the oil and gas sphere is detailed data on the explored oil and gas reserves in various categories and fields, as well as about the existing oil and gas production facilities. But all this belongs to the category of GOSTaina, and if documents containing information containing information of this kind fell into the hands of the Zaslavsky brothers, they would be accused of "ordinary" rather than industrial espionage.

However, Articles 275 and 276 of the Russian Criminal Code related to espionage are formulated so extensive that the FSB can attract anyone if desired. Indeed, for this, it is enough for a person to collect an open information, but on the instructions of the organization that the FSB will consider related to the CIA, Mi6 or any other foreign intelligence, as it was, for example, in the case of Igor Styagin.

But this path in the case of Zaslavsky is not very suitable. After all, the case was initiated not only to solve specific intra -Russian problems, but also to influence Western public opinion. And in the West, the Russian definition of espionage causes nothing but bewilderment. And it is not very convenient to represent a joint Russian-British company with the participation of Alfa-Group close to the Kremlin as an agent Mi6 (Ilya Zaslavsky most likely collected information for his company).

Therefore, the option with industrial espionage was chosen. This concept is defined as "a type of unfair competition; activity on illegal extraction of information representing commercial value." Unlike legal competitive intelligence, industrial espionage violates the norms of criminal law. These disorders are expressed in bribery, blackmail, theft and sabotage. Just these industrial espionage tools usually become the subject of trials in the West. The employees who disclosed the commercial secret, entrusted to them in the service, usually follow civil lawsuits from the affected companies. In Russia, crimes related to violation of commercial secrets are described in Art. 183 of the Criminal Code.

Clause 2 of this article (illegal disclosure or the use of commercial secrets) to the Zaslavsky brothers is unlikely to be applicable. It is doubtful that they transferred the information received from TNK-VR Management to someone. Then this company would be claimed first of all, but it does not express one. That the brothers were blackmailing someone is extremely unlikely - as well as the fact that they, like a swearing bear cubs, hacked the safe. There remains the abduction of documents or bribery of the persons who provided these documents. As you can understand, the investigation is inclined to the version of the bribery. But then in the case there should be at least another person involved - the one who was captivated - but nothing is known about him yet.

It is worth noting that Art. 183 leaves a wide field for arbitrary interpretations. First of all, it does not contain a definition of commercial secrets. The same definition contained in the Law of the Russian Federation "On Commercial Secret" (Article 3) is extremely amorphous. Since any information is able to bring benefits in principle, any information can be entered under the concept of “commercial information”, at least, for example, data on the presence of a mistress or lover at the head of the company. This or that state structure (and in the case of Zaslavsky, as can be understood from the mean messages of the FSB, we are talking about government agencies), can easily declare in retroactively certain information by components of a commercial secret. Moreover, the law determines that "the right to assign information to information constituting a commercial secret, and to determine the list and composition of such information belongs to the owner of such information" (Article 4, clause 1). Meanwhile, the reports of the Zaslavsky case were not mentioned anywhere that the documents had a “commercial secret” vulture, but it was argued that the presence of commercial secrets in them was determined using a certain examination. In addition, in addition to quite criminally punishable methods of obtaining data, the Code appears in any way deciphered “other illegal methods”, which, if desired, include a conversation for business lunch. It turns out that the articles of the Code of Disclosure of Commercial Secrets are an even more universal means than articles about espionage, in order to bring to justice and put anyone. Plus, the investigator can easily manipulate the category of “severity of damage caused”, determining the proposed punishment - from a fine of up to 10 years in prison.

In the oil and gas sector, a commercial secret includes the price at which they are going to sell products in the near future, as well as production technologies. Well, technologies, let’s say, it would never occur to anyone to steal in the Russian oil and gas complex. A joint venture with British Petroleum was created to use advanced Western technologies in Russia. As for the estimated price of raw materials or the selling value of certain assets, these figures in the documents are rarely fixed before they are announced, and only an extremely limited circle of persons has this information.

I think that the Zaslavsky case is the same political as the sensational case of the "spy stone". He may have several goals, the main of which is to undermine the possibility of improving Russian -British relations under the new Russian president, to take on his hands a cheap asset of TNK -BP and once again demonstrate that the notorious British council is a roof for spies. And then, when the noise settles, the case will be slowly entered on the brakes and will not even be brought to trial.