Latvia sent Russians packing on British claims NATO secrets stolen
Vladimir Putin
LONDON – Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his attacks on Britain by accusing its foreign intelligence agency of feeding Latvia's secret intelligence chief with "bogus evidence" that has led to three Russian diplomats being expelled from the country. The former Soviet Republic now is part of NATO and the diplomats were accused of stealing sensitive military NATO secrets.
The Kremlin has ordered Russian newspapers to mount a media blitz on Latvia's spy agency, SAB, and its British-born director, the burly Janis Kazocins. His liking for English-cut country tweeds and a clipped accent marks him out as a graduate of Sandhurst, Britain's training academy for the army. The son of Latvian refugees to Britain in the post-World War II era, he had been born in the industrial town of Peterborough in the Midlands.
Kazocins had a distinguished career in the army, rising to become a full-blown general who served in Northern Ireland and was a key NATO planner for the first Gulf War. He went on to become military attache at the British Embassy in the Latvian capital, Riga.
In an unexpected move, he resigned his position in 2003 and was appointed by the Latvian government to become head of SAB – an appointment that caused a political scandal in the country. He was forced to renounce his British citizenship and take a Latvian language test.
But Moscow denounced his appointment as being orchestrated by Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6. The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service is renowned for his recruitment skills.
Putin's own security service, FSB, has continued to claim Kazocins still is taking orders from MI6. The newspaper Moskovskie Novosti this week published a virulent attack on the 56-year-old Latvian spy chief claiming he is "controlled by MI6."
But the expulsion of the three Russian diplomats, insists Kazocins, resulted from his own security service conducting an "independent operation which caught the diplomats red-handed trying to steal NATO secrets."
Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
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