Translated material
The media talked about the FSB special department hunting for foreigners
American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was a participant in the prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries, together with colleagues from The Wall Street Journal, published an investigation into the most elite special department of the FSB. This department is behind the arrests of foreigners for the sake of exchange, as well as repressions against Russians.
The investigation is devoted to the work of the Department of Counterintelligence Operations (DCRO FSB). Employees of this unit are behind the detentions of US citizens in Russia - Gershkovich himself, former military man Paul Whelan and athlete Britney Greiner. The exchange of Americans, Germans and Russian oppositionists for FSB officer Vadim Krasikov and others arrested in the United States and European countries on August 1 was personally accompanied by the director of the DKRO, Dmitry Minaev, writes WSJ.
Gershkovich and colleagues said that it is Minaev who selects foreigners for arrest and subsequent exchange. The director of the special department reports to the head of the so-called first service of the FSB, Vladislav Menshchikov, Vladimir Putin’s hockey partner.
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DKRO employees are responsible for the death of the American ambassador's dog, spying on his children, as well as punctured tires on embassy cars, writes WSJ. Journalists spoke about a “strange incident” when FSB officers asked a student from a school at the American embassy to tell about the families of other children in exchange for the release of the allegedly detained mother.
Ukrainian authorities named Minaev as having given the order to blow up two cars containing GUR and SBU officers in Kyiv in 2017. Representatives of the Baltic countries accused the DKRO of kidnapping an Estonian intelligence officer ten years ago. Recruiting foreigners is also the responsibility of the special forces, journalists reported.
Inside Russia, the special department took part, for example, in purges of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. An important task of the DKRO is mass repression, including arrests of Russians on charges of treason. The WSJ called these repressions “the largest campaign since Stalin.”
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The department employs about two thousand FSB officers, writes WSJ. Moreover, these officers have the authority to give orders to hundreds of thousands of security officials throughout Russia. Attractive working conditions with high salaries and cheap mortgages have been created for department employees, American journalists said.
In December it became known that Russia is ready to conduct a second prisoner exchange with the United States and other countries. This was stated by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in an interview with NBC TV channel. The Russian official called the exchange a “healthy step forward” in relations between the Kremlin and the administration of future President Donald Trump.
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