ON FINDINGS AS FOR SPECIAL OPERATION PLANNED IN LATGALE



This week, an increased data-flow coming from Latvia has called the attention of CESI’s analysts. Data processing speaks for the fact that Moscow is likely to stage a destabilizing operation in Latvia in spring 2015.

This scenario foresees initiating local referendums in Latgale – the eastern region of Latvia, occupying nearly a quarter of country’s territory. As of 2010, the Russians account for approximately 40% of regional population.

The operation is not aimed at annexation of territories, but pursues a goal of creating temporary trouble spots, triggering Latvian authorities’ tough actions on suppressing secessionism in these territories. As a result, Moscow expects the operation to give an impetus to Latvia’s authorities to revise the Russian-speaking population policy, introduce zero-citizenship, lift the existing restrictions on Russian language use, thus enabling to enlarge the number of pro-Russian forces in power.

Data evaluation suggests that this scenario is a transitional one, while the maximum task is to provide conditions for establishing wide autonomies for Russian-speaking territories. According to our estimations, that would be too hard for Kremlin to implement the scenario of total annexation of Latvia’s part without embarking on hostilities, as it is in the east of Ukraine. Compact territory, in such a case, will enable the RF to bring the «peacekeeping» troops that would occupy a part of the territory and initiate the Latvians’ migration flow, thus tilting the ethnic balance in favor of the Russians.

We expect Russia’s agent cells to be expanded within Latgale’s territory, the pro-Russian propaganda activity to grow, and windows to be formed on the Russian border for movement of arms in case the operation is launched. Analysis of the Russians’ activity sequence in Ukraine speaks for possible work of their intelligence agencies with local government leaders from among the ethnic Russians, having got authority for organizing local population’s mass-scale support while conducting the operation.

http://eurasianintelligence.org/news.php?new=213&num

@zmiley   Jewish experience: if someone say, that want to kill you - believe it.

 

China rejected the Russian Federation of settlements in rubles. This is not a currency and also not the money

Китайская Народная Республика отказала России в переходе на рубль в межгосударственных расчетах. Российскую валюту здесь назвали "слишком нестабильной и рискованной", пишет главная государственная газета Китая "Жэньминь Жибао".



http://ehorussia.com/new/node/10202

Passenger plane near collision with Russian military plane

There was a close call in the Swedish skies south of Malmö on Friday, as a foreign military plane almost collided with a passenger plane, according to the website of the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist confirmed for Swedish Radio News that the foreign military plane was Russian and that it was flying with its transponder off.

"It's serious. It's inappropriate. It's downright dangerous," said Hultqvist. He also clarified for news agency TT that the incident took place in international air space, not in the Swedish skies.

The passenger plane had just lifted off from the Danish airport, Kastrup, when the military air traffic control noticed an "invisible" plane in the area.

Swedish and Danish fighter planes were sent up to identify it.

"The military plane had no transponder, but we discovered it via our radar system and warned the civil air traffic control in Malmö," Daniel Josefsson who works with combat management in Luleå, told the newspaper.

"All of a sudden, the military plane turned and I understood that in about a minute, it would be on a collision course with the passenger plane. We can see about how far it is between the planes, but can't determine the exact height. I contacted the civil air traffic control again, which then decided that the passenger plane would turn, and in that way, we avoided a catastrophe," Josefsson said.

According to Olle Sundin, director general of the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration, there are rules for how close planes can come to each other in the air, and in this case, the planes were clearly too close. He told DN that they still need to analyze their radar data to measure the distance, but that it is probably only the pilot of the passenger plane who can say how close they were.

"It could have ended really badly," Micael Bydén, chief of the Swedish Air Force told the newspaper.

In March this year, an SAS plane on the way from Kastrup to Rome was just 90 meters away from crashing into a Russian signals intelligence plane, which was also flying "invisibly", south of Malmö. Since then, military activity in the air space over the Baltic has increased, and according to the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration and to the Swedish Transport Agency, military planes are flying over the area daily without their transponders turned on, in order to avoid being discovered.

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6045400

1 US Dollar equals
55.99 Russian Ruble

1 Euro equals
69.40 Russian Ruble

Russian Spies Return to Europe in 'New Cold War'


Caught Red Handed: Two men were arrested by polish authorities on suspicion of spying for the Russian government in October. Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Earlier this month, experts convened in Brussels for a conference titled 'The Second Cold War: Heating Up?' Even among the plethora of current 'New Cold War' themed events, this one stood out: the organiser, Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka, has been accused of being a Russian agent of influence – a spy.

Zdanoka, who is also chair of the EU Russian-­Speakers Alliance insist there is no truth to the allegations, adding that the accusation was part of a ‘dirty tricks’ operation against her at home by domestic opponents – a tactic familiar from the Cold War days to those who remember them. In any event, the criminal investigation against her has been closed, Latvia’s DP intelligence service says. Yet the allegations point to the new – or revived – espionage game that is now playing out in Europe. Intelligence agencies everywhere are upping their games, with Western agencies putting particular efforts into data collection – “snooping”.

The West’s efforts, though, pale into insignificance compared to those of Russia. Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution reports growing instances of Russian espionage, and a spokesman for Sweden’s Säpo intelligence agency says that Russia has increased its intelligence agencies’ activities in Sweden since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis. A senior European intelligence official estimates that intelligence agency employees now account for one third of Russia’s diplomats.

Of course, after the Cold War, espionage never completely ceased. Last month, Heidrun Anschlag, a Russian spy who had arrived in Germany with her husband in 1988, was released from prison after serving a year’s sentence. The two had spied on Germany for more than 20 years, until they were caught two years ago.

Even more ambitiously, Russia has successfully reintroduced the Soviet practice of so-called ‘influence operations’, which feature Westerners and Russians expats doing Moscow’s bidding. “Currently, the Russians’ aim is to whisper criticism of Western activities in Ukraine and argue for economic sanctions to be abolished,” explains Piotr Zochowski, a security expert at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), a Warsaw think tank. But it’s only one part of a broader strategic target – persuading the West to recognise Russia’s right to shape the political situation in former USSR countries. During crises, of course, all intelligence services naturally intensify their efforts. But the Russians are beginning to do this on an industrial scale. Germany even has a neologism for talking heads explaining Russia in an overly friendly fashion: Russlandversteher, “those who understand Russia”.

Along with assorted MEPs and eurocrats, the list of speakers at Tatjana Zdanoka’s Cold War conference included Russia’s deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, the European representative of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, and the deputy director of the Fund for the Legal Protection and Support of Russian Federation Compatriots Living Abroad. The Russkyi Mir Foundation, established by the Russian government in 2007 to promote Russian language and culture abroad, gives grants and organises conferences and events. But the Fund for the Legal Protection and Support of Russian Federation Compatriots Living Abroad, central European intelligence agencies allege, has a more specific mission: supporting and funding Russia-friendly foreign NGOs.

Not that influence operations are a new trick. “In the 50s, the Soviets put huge resources into newspapers, news agencies and contacts with academics in the West, and the Brits and Americans responded with similar efforts,” notes Paul Lashmar, head of journalism at Brunel University, who specialises in the relationship between intelligence agencies and the media. “It didn’t peter out until the 70s. From the 2000s onwards the Russian intelligence agencies have been back in the game, using the same techniques as their Soviet predecessors.”

Moscow says that some Western NGOs and media outlets are “agents of influence” against the Kremlin. But that’s seriously doubted. As Lashmar notes, if taxpayers in the West got wind of nefarious influence operations by their own secret services, there would be an outcry.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union recruited Western communists as agents of influence: a small category that had the additional disadvantage of not being particularly popular. Signing up as an unofficial KGB megaphone voice for the media involved a certain ideological commitment as well. Some observers say it is easier for Moscow now, as Russia is less interested in ideology than raw power. “The same people keep coming back to the same position as Moscow, though not all the time as it would damage their credibility. For that reason, the Russians use different influence agents at different times,” says Joakim von Braun, a Swedish expert on Russian intelligence, pointing out that in the past five years Russia’s influence operations in Sweden have increased noticeably and have become more obvious.


 Russia's President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting of the Security Council. One European expert estimates that at least a third of Russia's diplomats work for Putin's intelligence agencies. Alexei Nikolskyi/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/Reuters
That, Lithuanian decision-makers say, is happening in their country as it attempts to lessen its dependence on Russian energy. “When we were deciding whether to build a power plant [in 2012], they tried to turn the public opinion against it”, says Rasa Jukneviciene, a member of the Lithuanian parliament’s security and defence committee and a former defence minister. “The same thing is happening now with our natural gas terminal; they’re trying to convince people it will be too expensive.” As in other European countries, radical groups in Lithuania often side with Russia, and Russia has often sided with environmental groups in Latvia and beyond in opposing fracking. “Not every radical group in Lithuania is connected to Russian intelligence services, but the Russians are taking advantage of them”, notes Jukneviciene.

That’s exactly the challenge facing intelligence agencies: when is a person an agent of influence – somebody who knowingly coordinates his opinions with a foreign intelligence agency – and when is he simply a passionate believer in ­Russia?

One case in point is Tallinn mayor Edgar Savisaar, who this autumn lost a court case against an Estonian newspaper that had referred to him as a Russian agent of influence. Or Johan Bäckman, a controversial Finnish sociologist, who energetically takes Russia’s side and whose Facebook profile now lists his job as Representative at Donetsk People’s Republic. Or the leaders of Impressum, a discussion club founded in Estonia in 2008 that now has branches in Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine. They often feature the same pro-Russian speakers, including a former Russian cabinet minister, who was barred from entering Estonia earlier this year. Identifying too many people wrongly as spooks because their views coincide with Mocow’s is itself dangerous. “Paradoxically, overuse of this term becomes a weapon in the hands of the Russian disinformation,” notes Zochowski. “By using it too often and without proper consideration we create an illusion that the impact of Russia’s secret influence is pervasive and inevitable.”

Several of the participants at Tatjana Zdanoka’s Cold War conference belong to another group that Baltic intelligence agencies allege is a Russian front organisation: World Without Nazism, founded four years ago by Russian oligarch Boris Spiegel, then a Duma member. But, WWN vice-president Valery Engel – a Russian-­Israeli citizen living in Latvia – says the allegation is simply an attempt to discredit a human rights organisation campaigning against neofascism, which reminds people of the woeful record the Baltic states had in backing Nazis during the War. “They’re trying to see the Russian threat everywhere, publishing stories that all anti-fascist organizations are in the hands of the Kremlin,” he says.

World Without Nazism has had some success in spreading its message. According to the organisation, it counts the US State Department and the Organization for Security and Co-­operation in Europe among its partners. Spiegel alone funds WWN, says Engel, though last year the group also received a grant from a Russian NGO.

“Does Russia support WWN’s agenda?” asks Efraim Zuroff, a top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who was previously involved with WWN. “Undoubtedly. I’m sure that Putin is happy having a group founded by a Jewish oligarch do the work for him.” Does that make it an agent of influence?

Any intelligence agency will make particular efforts in strategically important countries, and, for Russia, ex-Soviet republics – especially Western-leaning ones with large Russian minorities – are of particular interest.

“It’s natural that Russia is trying to influence public opinion in the former Soviet republics,” says Lashmar. In defending Russian diaspora communities, the Kremlin is neatly blending human rights with geopolitics.

It’s no mystery why a country, if given the chance, would use influence operations. In the Cold War, Radio Free Europe, which provided news behind the Iron Curtain, played a part in the collapse of Communism. Initially it was funded by the CIA. “It was an influence operation, a good one for sure, but an influence operation nonetheless”, says the German intelligence official.

The question now is whether Russia’s efforts will gain similar clout, and whether they have the potential to turn world opinion to its side.

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/19/spies-are-back-espionage-booming-new-cold-war-290686.html

Dramatic footage shows NATO jets confronting Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea



 The US-led military alliance has intercepted Russian military aircraft over 400 times this year

The Dutch airforce has released new video showing NATO fighter jets intercepting Russian military planes over the Baltic sea.

In a statement, NATO said over 30 types of Russian warplanes including bombers, fighters and transport aircraft were involved in the intercept carried out by the Royal Netherlands Air Force this week.

The latest interceptions are some of hundreds made by NATO aircraft this year, which the US-led military alliance claims are being used by Moscow to test and intimidate the West. Military officials say the illegal flight activity is a danger to civilian aircraft as planes often fly without a plan, air traffic control direction or using their response transmitter.

NATO has bolstered its military presence in the Baltics and Poland in recent months in response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and backing of insurgents in east Ukraine. In October, the US deployed troops and tanks to the region on a mission designed to deliver an unmistakable message to Moscow of the group's mission.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in October that the military alliance's jets had been scrambled over 400 times this year to intercept Russian military aircraft, double the amount of times than last year's total.

In October, non-NATO member Sweden began one of its biggest military operations since the Cold War after a submarine was sighted outside Stockholm. Moscow denied involvement in the incident following widespread speculation in the media that the sub was Russia.

http://uatoday.tv/geopolitics/dramatic-footage-shows-nato-jets-confronting-russian-warplanes-in-baltic-sea-396615.html

 @ChechenCenter

In the mountains of Ichkeria- heard shooting, Rus artillery firing at guess.Ppl say they are resisting to occupants dozens of ChRI Fighters.

Chechen leader: militants' families to be deported

MOSCOW (AP) — Following a rebel raid that left 25 people dead, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed strongman said Friday the families of rebels who take part in killings will now be punished by being deported and having their houses destroyed.



Thursday's clashes in Grozny dented a carefully nurtured image of stability created by Chechnya's regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov after two separatist conflicts. The violence raised fears of more attacks in Chechnya and widening unrest in the rest of Russia's volatile North Caucasus region.

Kadyrov, who has relied on his feared security force of former rebels like himself to pacify the province, said he would avenge the deaths of 14 police officers, including his relative, who died in clashes with the Islamic rebels. He said 11 attackers were killed and 36 policemen were wounded. Earlier official reports had said 10 police officers and 10 rebels were killed.

In a message Thursday on his Instagram account, which Kadyrov uses to issue public statements, he said that "the time when they said that parents can't be held accountable for the action of their sons and daughters has come to an end."

He warned that a father who sees that his son has joined the rebels should report him to the authorities or stop him by any other means before he spills blood.

"If a militant in Chechnya kills a policeman or any other person, the militant's family will be immediately banished from Chechnya without the right to come back, and their house will be razed to the ground," Kadyrov said.



He said he wouldn't care about criticism from rights activists. International human rights groups long have accused Kadyrov of rampant abuses, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Kadyrov said he also warned local administrators and police officials that they would have to resign if any local man joins the militants.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-police-deaths-rise-14-chechnya-152057097.html

 @ChechenCenter

Kadyrov is continuing burning houses of Chechen rebels' relatives. Chechen civilians are asking human rights activists to stop injustice.

Heavy clashes in Chechnya

@ChechenCenter
В горах Ичкерии слышны перестрелки, российская артиллерия стреляет на угад. Жители говорят, что оккупантам сопротивляются десятки бойцов ЧРИ

https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/542399933945368578

Hackers Dump Thousands of Rostov Police Documents on Internet; Evidence of Soldiers Wounded in Ukraine

InformNapalm, a website that has published exposes of Russian troops and armor in Ukraine, has recently leaked thousands of documents it claims came from the Russian Interior Ministry's branch in Rostov, near the Ukrainian border.

In an article titled "Ukrainian Cybertroops Dump Mass of Data from Servers of Russian Interior Ministry; Compromising Materials Found!," InfoNapalm.org reports that Eugene Dokunin, a Ukrainian computer programmer, is coordinating a team of volunteers to publicize and analyze the documents.

The archive has been posted on a Google Drive and contains 69 folders of 1.78 GB of files.

We have found some indication that the documents may be authentic, but more analysis is needed. The documents consist of a huge volume of reports, and minute detail on police operations using the kind of language and acronyms known to be used by Russian police, possibly indicating that these were leaked from the Rostov Interior Ministry,

To verify the materials, documents will have to be linked to other verified news reports and documents.

We found one such document in the archives, a report called "Manhunt," which describes a joint operation between the police and Federal Security Service (FSB) to look for people already on existing "wanted" lists. The report describes the capture of  Mikhail Shvindyakov, accused of robbery and larceny, whom we also discovered on the "wanted" list published on the web site of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. The same birth date and offenses were listed, but the cities of residency differed.

More such matches are needed to assess the legitimacy of the trove. Russian journalists and NGOs who are experts on police have yet to comment (we have sent out some queries and are awaiting responses.)

Ukrainian activists are digging through the trove and say they have found some materials that confirm the participation of Russian soldiers and law-enforcers in the war in eastern Ukraine. They say they found one document dated August 25, 2014, which appears to be a police report about four Russian soldiers, serving in Millerovo, who said they were wounded by National Guard fighters 10 kilometers to the northwest of the village of Prognoy of Tarasov District. As InformNapalm  illustrates, that would put it inside Ukrainian territory:


This document is posted to Informnapalmorg's site here. We were also able to find it in the archive here, in the folder labelled "Millerovo," a Russian town near the Ukrainian border.


Another document posted here contains information about 237 wounded persons from the region of Ukraine as of September 27. They were said to include two wounded soldiers accompanied by FSB guards. We have not yet located the document in the archive.

Some Twitter bloggers have posted some examples of these documents, but they haven't posted links back to the archive itself, so we can't verify the claims yet.

The files contain a huge grab-bag of materials -- a robbery of a jewelry store, theft of icons of a Russian Orthodox Church, 26 persons stopped for various traffic violations -- including 8 Romas from Ukraine without identification papers.

So they will have to be sifted through to find anything that is relevant to the war in Ukraine or other important topics.

For example, one police report is dated October 25, 2014, on "Administrative Practice in the Area of Ensuring Public Safety". After scrolling through reports of arrests for "petty hooliganism" and "drinking alcohol in a public place," we noticed the arrest of 5 administrative violators for "propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi attributes or symbols or public demonstration of attributes or symbols of extremist organizations" in Rostov, Volgodonskoye, Bataisk and Belokalitvensky District.

So the "Nazism" isn't only "in Ukraine" as Russian propaganda claims, but right in Russia.

A document signed by M.B. Doda and addressed to Yu.I. Kravchenko, a police colonel who is head of the Interior Ministry branch in Rostov, contains a blank form labelled "form for reporting on citizens of Ukraine who come into treatment facilities on the territory of Police Dept. No. 2 in Rostov." That could mean wounded soldiers -- or wounded civilians, we don't know.

Another document dated "June 2014," but with the day left out, is a report on "eliminating violations of federal law" by policemen themselves. Evidently the police were "ineffective" in their work in "stopping illegal migration" in the region. What this meant is that police had failed to properly inspect and register foreign immigrants -- likely from Ukraine. Russia doesn't seem to discourage immigrants from Ukraine so far and claims to be taking care of them, but they do apparently want to document them thoroughly and weed out those suspected of crimes.

Another document dated September 11, 2014 is "Order No. 1362" from the main directorate of the Rostov Interior Ministry office, signed by Maj. Gen. A.P. Larionov and speaks of the need to combat unlawful transport of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and drugs from Ukraine across the Russian border and outlines a number of measures to better tighten up and coordinate the work. Are authorities worrying about the war in Ukraine blowing back home?

Here's a document of arrests made by traffic police of truck drivers without their papers in order or illegal freight - drugs, alcohol, meat, nuts, metal, arms, ammunition, stolen property. Where are the arms and ammunition going to? And given how often we see Russian convoys roll into Ukraine without being stopped, why are some trucks stopped by traffic police?

In other words, the documents make clear what a strain the war in Ukraine -- instigated by the Kremlin in Moscow -- has put on the regional police authorities who must now cope with hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring across the border, and thousands of Russian-backed militants from the Donbass who come into Russia for training, supply and R&R.

We'll continue to look through these folders and report on any interesting findings.

http://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-live-day-294-fighting-continues-on-eve-of-day-of-silence/#5481

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxsQ108is142Q1dMcVNUc3J2U28