FSB warns CIA against further spy recruitment

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has officially confirmed that it cautioned the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station in Moscow against further attempts to recruit officers of Russian special services.

"In October 2011, the FSB issued an official warning to the CIA station chief in Moscow that if provocative recruitment actions continued in relation to officers of Russian special services, Russia's FSB would take "mirror" measures in relation to CIA officers," an FSB spokesman told Interfax on Friday. 

"In this statement, the FSB gave the surnames of concrete Russian citizens whom CIA operatives had tried to approach, as well as information about these CIA operatives," he said.

Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper was notified of the situation as well.

Hot topic: Spy scandal

It was reported earlier that Russia's Federal Security Service detained Ryan Christopher Fogle, a CIA operative, in the act of recruiting an officer of a Russian special service early on May 14. Fogle worked in Moscow as third secretary of the U.S. Embassy Political Department.

The CIA, however, ignored the warning, and the FSB detected new attempts by CIA operatives to recruit officers of Russian law enforcement agencies and security services, the spokesman said.

"That is why, when CIA operative Benjamin Dillon, who worked in Moscow as third secretary of the U.S. Embassy Economic Department, was caught in December 2012 doing the same as Fogle, he was declared persona non grata through the Russian Foreign Ministry on January 11, 2013, and left our country on January 15," the spokesman said.

Hoping that the CIA administration would draw the required conclusions, the FSB chose to keep quiet about the Dillon situation, he said.

Asked why Fogle's detention was made public, the FSB spokesman said that "in Fogle's case, the CIA crossed the "red line", and we had no other choice but to respond to it in accordance with the official procedures."

The spokesman also has confirmed information earlier received by Interfax that the Russian counterintelligence service has always been aware that Fogle is a CIA operative.

"By the time of Ryan Fogle's arrival in Moscow in April 2011, we were aware of his job as a CIA operative," he said.

Representatives of all foreign special services are under the surveillance of the FSB, and the CIA is no exception, he said.

"Such an approach is aimed at preventing any possible acts by foreign special services capable of damaging Russia's security," the spokesman said.

The article is based on materials by Interfax.

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