Russia recruits young spies: Lure of "romantic adventure" (Feature)

By Ulf Mauder Jun 29, 2010, 18:57 GMT

Moscow - Without any ado, Russia's foreign intelligence service SWR is recruiting young agents on an internet website with the promise of 'romantic adventure in a career in espionage.'

The invitation to apply includes a description of core duties such as this: 'Help your country in its economic development and pursuit of scientific and technical progress.'

After the arrest of 11 suspected Russian spies in the United States and Cyprus, who have been charged with providing secrets to Russia, there are still many questions to be answered. But even Germany and France have said that they are being targeted by Russia's industrial spies.

Russia has rejected the US accusations, dismissing them as laughable, but the incident has reawakened memories of the Cold War.

The revelation Monday by US justice officials comes at a bad time for Russia.

Just last week, US President Barack Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, waxing lyrical about Medvedev's interest in California's high tech capital Silicon Valley and a future of economic cooperation in the technology sphere that would benefit both sides.

In general, Russia's relationship with the West has grown closer under Medvedev.

That partly explains the unusually strong rebuff of the charges on Tuesday by the former head of Russia's FSB intelligence agency, Nikolai Kovalyov. He questioned the timing of the arrests, more than a decade after the suspects came under surveillance, and theorised that political powers in the US want to destroy the new start in relations with Russia.

Medevedev's plans to build a Russian version of the Silicon Valley in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo were central to his stops in California and Washington last week.

Medvedev wants to bring an economically backward country, whose main industries are energy and metals exports, from the past into the modern future. He got pledges of help from Google Inc chief executive Eric Schmidt and from Cisco, among others.

The Kremlin-critical English-language newspaper The New Times, which is published in Moscow and Prague, commented recently that for Russia to make the leap to modern technology, it would once again have to steal the know-how through spying, just as it did during the days of the Soviet Union.

Since Medvedev revealed his vision of the Skolkovo project, accusations and worries have been mounting in the West about Russia's spy activities.

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere warned last week in a report about the special dangers of economic and industrial espionage.

'States like Russia and China are actively operating espionage in the areas of economy, science and research,' the annual report of Germany's constitutional protection agency said.

Russia also rebuffed those charges. Moscow's foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko dismissed such suggestions as 'leftover attitudes from Cold War times.' He used similar words to reject the US charges on Tuesday.

French media and the government-critical Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta recently raised their eyebrows over the granting of a prime piece of Paris real estate to the Russian Orthodox Church for a cathedral. The deal was sealed by Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Novaya Gazeta called the building the 'Espionage Cathedral' as French officials hinted it could serve as Russia's largest foreign agent headquarters ever.

Critics of the Russian government, as usual, see the hand of former secret police head Vladimir Putin, now Russia's prime minister, at work.

The Paris location for the Orthodox church was a 'wonderful, surprisingly beautiful, site,' Putin was quoted as saying.

Kovalyov, who preceded Putin as Russia's chief spy and is now a member of parliament, on Tuesday dismissed the US charges as 'absolute rubbish' and said they read like a 'cheap detective story distinctly under the level of Agatha Christie.'

In 2007, when Putin was still president, he hinted at the growing importance of foreign espionage.

'The effectiveness of our domestic and foreign political decisions are directly dependent on the quality of the information we collect,' Putin said.