SPIES EXPELLED FROM CENTRAL RUSSIA.

The central Russian region of Ulyanovsk has expelled some eighty foreigners over the past eighteen months for alleged espionage activities, the Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Ulyanovsk chief said on June 17. The FSB official explained that the industrialized region attracts foreign spies because of its many secret installations and research and design facilities. He claimed that the expelled foreigners were involved in collecting classified information about Russian national property. He provided, however, no more specific information on the activities of the spies, nor did he identify their country of origin. (AP, Itar-Tass, June 17)

Russia’s intelligence community has said that the activities of foreign operatives in Russia has actually increased since the end of the Cold War. It has also claimed a number of successes in unmasking foreign spies. The FSB has, among other things, established a “hot line” number for Russian citizens recruited by foreign agencies. In what the FSB says has been a highly successful program, citizens calling the line have been promised immunity from prosecution. The FSB is Russia’s domestic counterintelligence agency and the main successor to the Soviet KGB.

THE LOOMING NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT BURDEN.