Satellite communications for separatists were provided in Moscow

The Moscow Military Court sentenced former FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin

The Moscow Military Court sentenced former FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin to four years. He was accused of disclosing state secrets. For several years, he kept old official papers at home near the front door, and among office supplies on a bookshelf—cartridges in a bag. All this was suddenly discovered following a tip-off from the Internal Security Directorate (USB) of the FSB of the Russian Federation. And as a final touch, while checking an anonymous tip, a pistol was found in his car, which, in fact, served as the grounds for his arrest.

The documents seized from the former FSB officer turned out to be, for the most part, dusty notes on Marxism-Leninism. An official investigative experiment showed that the pistol could not fit under the car seat. And then the person who searched the car suddenly remembered that the weapon fell out of God knows where right into hands weary from the search...

Given the lack of seriousness of the charges, almost everyone who came to the sentencing hoped for an acquittal. At the very least—a suspended sentence. Even FSB investigators (I happened to speak with them) did not believe it could be otherwise. But their former colleague was dealt with to the full extent of the law. At that point, everyone was convinced that the pistol in his old car did not appear by chance out of thin air.

There are four reasons why the FSB leadership does not want to see Mikhail Trepashkin free. Unknown intelligence officers handed over documents and materials to us that have a direct bearing on their former colleague. He was interested in the fate of at least four significant cases, one of which personally concerned the leaders of the FSB of the Russian Federation. And he constantly reminded them of this.

We have already partially reported on the difficult relationship that Trepashkin had with high-ranking superiors ("Novaya Gazeta" No. 96 last year): the current director of the FSB, General Patrushev, was forced to make excuses when Trepashkin and other officers filed a lawsuit protesting an unfair disciplinary action. Furthermore, it was thanks to Trepashkin that the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation recognized that "Colonel-General N. P. Patrushev, using his official powers, ordered inquiries to be made" about a private debtor so that $8,000 could be collected from him... Such a request came to Patrushev from Pronichev (now the first deputy director of the FSB)—at that time the Minister of Security of Karelia...

All this is a quiet prelude compared to what we have learned now.

Roman SHLEYNOV

Operational record case "Bratany". The Golyanovskaya group and the FSB

In the spring of 1995, the Internal Security Directorate (USB) of the FSB and the RUOP of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate received... [text cut off]

...when he intended to deliver weapons to one of the gang leaders. But the case went no further.

It had to be transferred from one department of the FSB USB to another. On September 11, 1995, the deputy head of the USB ordered it to be returned, and another lower-ranking head added: "It is not clear whether A(...) and S(...) are committing any criminal or illegal acts" (outgoing No. 22/1-590 dated September 8, 1995).