Russian secret services failed in Caucasus, Chechnya, Ukraine's Crimea - website.

Text of report by anti-Kremlin Russian current affairs website Yezhednevnyy Zhurnal on 5 January

[Article by Andrey Soldatov: "Year Results. Security Services"]

Russian security services finished 2009 suffering tangible losses in key areas. At the same time, they tested (with varied success) new methods in counterintelligence practice on the British and Americans. They achieved unequivocal success in one area only: the fight against terrorism, which, however - similar to the operation of secret services - has now become completely off limits for public control.

Two areas in which FSB [Federal Security Service] sustained the worst losses in 2009 are Chechnya and Crimea. In Chechnya, amid the increased gunmen activity, the counterterrorist operation regime was terminated (which radically curtailed the capabilities of federal structures in the republic), while command of the operational staff was passed to the republican level controlled by Kadyrov. In Crimea, a group of 19 FSB officers, who officially oversaw the [Russian] Black Sea Fleet, was urgently removed from Sevastopol following the public and humiliating pressure from Ukrainian SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] counterintelligence, which alternated it with threats. (This is a tangible loss for the security service on Ukrainian territory because FSB, including military counterintelligence staffers, has …