Estonia govt commissions study of Russian intel methods - radio and TV company
TALLINN. June 25 (Interfax) - Estonia's government has commissioned a local think tank to study the operations of former Soviet and current Russian foreign intelligence.
The Tallinn-based Baltic Center for Russian Studies is to carry out two projects under a June 22 agreement with the Education and Science Ministry.
One is entitled "Analysis of the Operations of Russian Intelligence from the 1930s to the 1980s" and the other, "Structure and Methods of the Operations of Russian Intelligence Abroad," Estonia's ERR radio and television company said in a statement on its website on Monday.
The center's director, Vladimir Yushkin, denied any link between the projects and the recent arrest of Aleksei Dressen, a former officer at the Estonian Security Police who is suspected of high treason. "Rather, it's a retrospective effort. We can only analyze documents that have been declassified," Yushkin told ERR.
It is likely that "Russian special services still use some of those methods nowadays," Yushkin argued. "Methods of recruitment, for example, stay unchanged for centuries."
The projects are to take about a year to accomplish, Yushkin said.