Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about the new rules for employing technical staff in embassies during his speech in the State Duma, on Wednesday. The minister's words came in response to the statement of MP and former intelligence officer Andrei Lugovoi, who called for a reconsideration of this practice in the case of diplomatic missions from “unfriendly countries.” He pointed out that in Soviet times, foreign embassies could not search for employees on their own. – After the collapse of the Soviet Union, unfriendly countries, in particular the Anglo-Saxons and especially the British, began to employ people as gardeners, drivers, cooks and perform certain tasks, including communicating with our citizens on a secret basis, Lugovoi said. .
In response to the MP's statements, Lavrov said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently does not know who works as a cook and gardener in diplomatic missions, but this practice is changing: – We proceed from the fact that it is necessary to legally deprive foreigners in diplomatic missions of the possibility of being employers. This is a natural and logical step that will allow us to meet the legitimate requests of employees and prevent abuse of embassies. Not only are we enhancing this process, we have already included the British Embassy in Russia and [brytyjski] Consulate General in Yekaterinburg.
In Soviet times, when foreign embassy staff were selected by the Main Department of Diplomatic Services within the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, until 1988, a significant portion of these staff – Russians working in Western embassies as cooks, drivers or cleaners – consisted Of KGB officers, as Boris Bondarev, who previously worked in Russian diplomacy, told us.
These technical workers who were not professional spies were trained in information gathering by the KGB. Now, when the embassy is looking for someone, the secret service may try to place its agents there. Bondario says the Foreign Ministry will offer five drivers to choose from, and all five will be FSB commanders.
The prospect of a return to the Soviet practice of employing staff at foreign embassies to bring in agents seems inevitable, agrees former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. However, the main purpose of the ban on embassies searching for personnel on their own is not to increase the intelligence potential of the Russian security services, as Bondarev believes. In his opinion, the main point is to create additional inconvenience for Western diplomats.
Nowadays, most Western countries prefer to employ on-site technical staff for their diplomatic missions abroad. However, this practice is fundamentally different for Russia, which sends not only diplomats but also plumbers, drivers and locksmiths to the United States and European countries, Bondarev continues. — Since Soviet times, we have retained the concept of the embassy as a besieged fortress, explains the former diplomat. According to him, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs only employs local specialists in African and Asian countries.
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