Among the many international pseudo-academies with a KGB veneer that emerged in Russia immediately after the collapse of the USSR, the Academy of Security, Protection, and Law Enforcement (ABOP) is the most interesting. And, apparently, the most successful, given its alignment with the goals of the intelligence services. Although ABOP itself was formally disbanded in 2009 following a scandal in the German press, it continues to exist in Russia under a slightly modified name. Its partners, both Russian and international, its established connections, and the educational institution it founded remain intact. The very process of ABOP's creation and dissolution is of exceptional interest for understanding the new operating methods of the Russian intelligence services that emerged in the 1990s. ABOP was established in 1999, and its president until the fall of 2008 was KGB Lieutenant General Viktor Shevchenko, who until 2000 served as the chief of military counterintelligence at the General Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces.

The press service was represented on the ABOP website – www.abop.su – by two KGB counterintelligence veterans, a colonel and a general, and one recent graduate of the FSB Academy. The numerous vice presidents, the actual number of whom is difficult to determine from open media reports, are also all generals.

As General Shevchenko has stated in numerous interviews, the idea for the academy came from Putin himself. He voiced it at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, which he chaired at the time. The goal of the initiative is ‘to unite the activities of public organisations working on issues of national security and defence.’

The wording is odd. Issues of ‘state security and defence’ cannot be unclassified. And public organisations are public for a reason: they don't do anything classified, as they can't have access to state secrets. Either secrets aren't secrets, or organisations aren't public.

Putin's initiative was unanimously supported by the Security Council, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, and other senior government agencies. The Academy was registered in August 2000, and in October it was approved as ‘the leading scientific public centre of the State Duma Committee on Security for scientific research support of legislative work in this area.’

The Academy's members included virtually all the RSFSR's power ministers, current and former prime ministers, and virtually all the country's top officials. According to 2004 data, 58 heads of federal subjects were members of the ABOP.

The website www.abop.ru (which disappeared in 2009) published a list of 141 Academy members. Apparently, only the most important are represented here, as the more than 60 regional ABOP branches and six affiliates in the CIS countries have between 5,000 and 8,500 members.

According to its charter, the Academy is a self-supporting organisation, financed through membership fees and commissions for research in the field of national security. In a 2004 interview, Viktor Shevchenko mentioned that the Academy had prepared 193 scientific reviews and 30 research papers commissioned by the Presidential Administration, the Security Council, and law enforcement agencies.

The Academy established a whole system of so-called ‘public awards’: the Order of Peter the Great of three degrees, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky of three degrees, the Order of the Great Victory, the Order of Mikhail Lomonosov, the Order of ‘Patron of Russia,’ the Yu. V. Andropov Prize, the G. K. Zhukov Prize, the Full Member of the International Pedagogical Academy, the Academy of the Peoples of the World, and others.

M.V. Lomonosov, Peter the Great, ‘For Love and Loyalty to the Fatherland,’ ‘For Merits in Ensuring International Security,’ ‘Honor, Glory, Pride of Russia,’ and ‘Catherine the Great.’ The awards are accompanied by corresponding medals. The highest public order, Peter the Great, ‘for outstanding services and significant personal contribution to the development and strengthening of the Russian State,’ has been awarded to President Putin and countless other important individuals. Cities, factories, and workforces have also been awarded the order.

The Academy generously distributed its fake academic titles and awards within Russia, but its main purpose was to establish contacts with important foreign officials: government officials, ambassadors, military attachés, prominent businessmen, and politicians. In Russia, this was done at receptions at foreign embassies, and abroad, under the cover of Russian consulates and embassies.

ABOP branches existed in almost every country in the world. In Germany, the president of the German branch of ABOP was Wolf-Olav Paentzer, a car dealer from Greifswald (former East Germany) and a former employee of a military factory there. As it was later revealed, Paentzer had been a secret STASI operative in the 1980s, and, according to some indications, a KGB agent.

In 2007, Paentzer became a member of the influential German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). At that time, the head of DGAP's Eastern European department was political scientist Alexander Rahr, also awarded the Order of Peter the Great and the author of several pro-Putin books. By 2011, after the exposure of ABOP and Paentzer in the German press, Hanse Autohaus Paentzer GmbH was added to the list of DGAP sponsors.

In Germany, ABOP actively distributed medals to a wide variety of important people, including prominent politicians, public figures, and its own ‘friends.’ In July 2005, a list of individuals awarded ABOP medals in a single ceremony in Germany on June 22, 2005, was published on the ABOP website. This included a whole crowd of employees of Russian embassies and German public figures and politicians—beginning with Brandenburg Prime Minister Matthias Platzeck and Bundestag President Walter Momper.

The list of order holders living in Germany is extremely interesting: "PLATZECK Matthias – President of the Bundesrat, Prime Minister of the State of Brandenburg.

MOMPER Walter – President of the Chamber of Deputies (parliament) of Berlin.

MICHELS Martina – Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies (parliament) of Berlin.

DOMKE Helmut – Head of the Department of Justice, Federal and European Affairs of the State of Brandenburg.

STAUDE Andrea – Governing Mayor of Torgau.

FÜHRER Reinhard – President of the People's Union for the Care of War Graves.

Gernot ERLER – Coordinator of the German Foreign Ministry for socio-political relations with Russia.

Karl-Heinz HOFFMANN – activist of the German-Russian Friendship Society. Anna Georgievna SIMON – president of the Berlin-Karlshorst Interclub.

SIMANOVICH Evgeny Nikolaevich – Activist of the German-Russian Friendship Society.

DREHER Georgy Iosifovich – WWII veteran. BASKIN Mikhail Izrailevich – BOB veteran, survivor of the siege of Leningrad. KOLODIZNER Yakov Iosif-Abovich – WWII veteran. SUKHOLUTSKY Miron Grigorievich – WWII veteran. IHTEIMAN Moisey Nakhmanovich – WWII veteran. DERNBERG Stefan – German anti-fascist, Red Army volunteer. MEBEL Moritz – German anti-fascist, Red Army volunteer.

PODIMAKHINA Hanna – German anti-fascist, volunteer of the Red Army.

FLORIN, Peter – German anti-fascist, Red Army volunteer. STRAUBE, Fritz – German anti-fascist, Red Army volunteer.

MODROW Hans – Honorary Chairman of the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism).

BEDNAREK Horst – Chairman of the Union of Anti-Fascists of the Treptow District (Berlin).

WOLF Markus – writer, publicist

TLUSTEK Erika. JAN Peter – Director of the Russian-German Museum ‘Berlin-Karlshorst’.

FISHER Wolfgang – Head of the Office of Interparliamentary Relations of the Bundesrat.

RUMPE Monika – Advisor to the Office of Interparliamentary Relations of the Bundesrat.

MOCKENHAUPT-GORDON Ines – Head of the Visitors Service of the Bundestag.

FUNKE Lothar – Head of the Protocol Service of the Chamber of Deputies (parliament) of Berlin.

STOKES Christian – Head of Protocol and External Relations of the Senate of Berlin.

BUCHNER Hans-Georg – employee of the Department of Urban Development of the Berlin Senate.

BRUCH Michael – Deputy Head of the Protocol and External Relations Service of the Senate of Berlin.

WÜBBE Benita is an employee of the Berlin Senate's Department of Urban Development.

FETTER Renee is a spokeswoman for the Govt. Bargaining. KNAPE Michael – Burgomaster d. Troyenbritzen. ILC Peter – Burgomaster g. Gunpowder.

PEKH Cyrill – Chairman of the society ‘Berlin Friends of the Peoples of Russia’.

NOIBER Eugen – member of the board of the society ‘Berlin Friends of the Peoples of Russia’.

HERMANN Horst – member of the board of the society ‘Berlin Friends of the Peoples of Russia’.

Knud Petersen is the architect for the reconstruction of the memorial in Treptower Park. Peter Petersen is the architect for the reconstruction of the memorial in Treptower Park. Klaus-Dieter Müller is an employee of the Saxon Memorials Foundation.

KHARITONOV Alexander Nikolaevich – employee of the Saxon Memorials Foundation.

PRIS Lutz is a member of the board of the Berlin Friends of the Peoples of Russia society.

The characters listed in this list can be divided into several main groups.

• German politicians of various ranks, members of parliament and employees of the Bundestag, federal and state governments.

• Functionaries of various German-Russian public organisations with a distinct ideological orientation.

• Soviet emigrants – war veterans.

• Old friends – functionaries of the former GDR government.

The final group is represented by two more than interesting figures. Hans Modrow, a former member of the Politburo of the SED Central Committee and the last chairman of the GDR Council of Ministers, is recommended as Honorary Chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (now the Linke Party – The Left).

Colonel General Markus Wolf, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR from 1958 to 1986, that is, the main spy of the GDR, is called a ‘writer’.

Overall, it's safe to assume that the crowd of ‘order-bearers’ consists of two groups: those already active in Moscow's operations and those potentially targeted for recruitment. The awarding of orders at the Russian Embassy can be seen as the first step toward recruitment. The extent to which these efforts were successful can be judged by the subsequent activity of those awarded.

We believe there's little doubt, for example, regarding Matthias Platzeck. He consistently expresses views favourable to Moscow.

The shamelessness and naivety of ABOP’s activities seems astonishing.

It seems that Russian intelligence generals genuinely failed to understand that publishing a list of award recipients, which included Markus Wolf alongside prominent German politicians, compromised the former and complicated their mission. Moreover, the announcement of the award and the list of recipients on the ABOP website were accompanied by photographs of only two individuals receiving the award: Russian Ambassador to Germany Kotenev and Markus Wolf.

However, nothing terrible happened at that moment. The list's publication on the ABOP website went unnoticed, and it was only remembered in 2008, when a scandal erupted around ABOP.

The culmination of ABOP's success in Germany can be considered to be June 2006.

Then, the ABOP leadership descended on Bavaria. With great pomp, the president of the ABOP, KGB Lieutenant General Shevchenko, personally presented the Order of Peter the Great to Bavarian Interior Minister (and future Prime Minister) Günther Beckstein. The inscription on the back of the pseudo-order—‘For Services to Russia’—was especially poignant. Simultaneously, more than 50 other prominent Bavarians—politicians, police officers, journalists, and cultural figures—received ABOP orders of varying degrees. God knows how many of Beckstein's aides were recruited in the process.

The list of recipients in Bavaria is much more diverse in social terms than the list of recipients in Berlin the previous year. It includes politicians and high-ranking officials, priests, police officers, musicians, doctors, journalists, and businessmen.

To appreciate the unnaturalness of what's happening, one must recall the effort it took the STASI and the KGB during the Iron Curtain to bring their people from East Berlin to major Western politicians. Years of meticulous preparation! And here, simply put, a large delegation of state security officials from Moscow arrives, they drink, eat, socialize, and are thanked for their awards... And at the government level, no less.

Of all the Bavarians participating in this event, only one journalist from a local newspaper, who was supposed to be reporting on it, sensed something was wrong. She didn't speak a word of Russian, but when she found the ABOP page online, she was surprised by the large number of people in uniform, which somehow didn't fit the image of a ‘charitable organisation.’ Her search sparked discontent and even threats from the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior.

The driving force behind this whole event was Christian Holtz, a doctor from the Bavarian village of Denkendorf, north of Munich, who held the title of ‘Professor of the ABOP’ and had visited Russia many times.

In October 2006, the ABOP office was ceremoniously opened in Denkendorf, and Holtz himself was appointed ABOP representative for Bavaria. At the celebrations, Viktor Shevchenko distributed another batch of medals to local journalists and politicians.

***

No less brazen was the ABOP's foray into England in October 2005.

Here are excerpts from a message on the ABOP website (later liquidated):

"01.11.2005 20:16 The Confederation of British Industry received the ABOP delegation in London.

From October 24 to 26, 2005, the London Conference Centre hosted the international scientific and practical conference ‘Energy, Economics, Investments, and Risks in China and Russia.’ It was organised by Petroleum Economist Bank for members of the Confederation of British Industry (IAISB) who maintain business contacts with Russian partners. A delegation from the IAISB, consisting of Lieutenant General S.V. Lekarev, Vice President and Head of the Academy's Department of International Organisations, Doctor of Philosophy, V.L. Yurkova, Advisor to the IAISB President on Criminal Law, and Professor I.I. Koroleva, Head of the Academy's English Language Department, were invited to the conference as official guests.

Introducing the ABOP delegation to the seminar participants on the conference's ‘Russian Day,’ Nigel Bance, the presiding director of Petroleum Economist, gave a brief presentation on the ABOP's activities and introduced the Academy's delegation members by name. With great interest, more than 100 seminar participants, including businessmen from the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Australia, France, and Italy, listened to the 40-minute presentation by Academy Vice President S.V. Lekarev on ‘Characteristic Features of Modern Terrorism in the Post-Soviet Space.’ The presentation, twice the scheduled time, was delivered in English, with the text simultaneously displayed page by page on the video monitor.

At the plenary session of the conference, V. L. Yurkova, a member of the ABOP delegation, delivered a detailed presentation on the topic of ‘Problems of criminal-bureaucratic redistribution of property (seizure of enterprises) in Russia.’

The presentation was listened to with interest by representatives of companies providing services in the field of protection against business risks, who during the discussion showed a heightened interest in the so-called ‘Yukos case.’

During the conference, the ABOP delegation established promising contacts with representatives of the British business and financial community. Discussions were held with these individuals regarding the Academy's capabilities in organising business security in the CIS. In this regard, an agreement was reached with several businessmen to organise business meetings in Moscow.

On the final day of the conference, the management of Petroleum Economist, which intends to hold a similar seminar in April 2006, invited the ABOP delegation to participate in the next discussion, which will touch on issues of energy, economics, investment, and risks in Ukraine and Iraq.

On October 25, the ABOP delegation took part in the opening of the ABOP branch in London, which was appointed head by Professor Nigel Bance, a full member of the Academy, an English historian, writer, and journalist. <…> On October 27, at the request of Alexei Grinberg, editor-in-chief of the Moscow-published magazine Monolith Digest, preliminary negotiations were held with representatives of several British publications, including Global Agenda Magazine, Petroleum Economist, and Money Week, regarding the possibilities and conditions for distributing the magazine in the UK, Canada, and Australia. <…> At a reception held on October 26 at the Russian Embassy in the UK in honour of the arrival of the ABOP delegation, Yuri Viktorovich Fedotov, the Russian Ambassador to London, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Russia's representative to the UN, was awarded the Order of Peter the Great, 1st degree, for his outstanding personal contribution to strengthening the Russian state. The Order of Alexander Nevsky, 1st Class, was awarded to Major General Nikolai Nesterovich Koval, the Russian Military Attaché to the United Kingdom. During a detailed discussion at the reception, the heads of the Russian mission were briefed on the activities of the Academy and outlined future events to be held jointly with embassy staff. All participants were presented with ABOP brochures, the latest issue of Monolith Digest magazine featuring materials about the Academy, and materials from the conference attended by the Academy's delegation. Ambassador Yuri Fedotov expressed his readiness to provide every assistance to the Academy's events in the UK aimed at strengthening British-Russian relations.

This text provides insight into the goals and methods of ABOP's activities, as well as the nature of its relationships with official Russian missions abroad. The success of ABOP's apparent recruitment efforts was largely due to the support and protection of Russian embassies. There is no reason to believe that the connections ABOP established abroad in industrial and political circles were severed after its sudden liquidation in 2008.

The whole situation is further complicated by the fact that Lieutenant General and ‘PhD’ Stanislav Lekarev, who spoke to British industrialists about terrorism in the post-Soviet space in 2005, is a KGB officer who served as a KGB resident in London from 1963 to 1975. As Lekarev himself writes in his autobiography, published on the ABOP website: ‘After thirteen years of work in the foreign counterintelligence of the First Main Directorate (1963-1975), for the next 13 years (1975-1988)—and that's my lucky number—I served in the central apparatus of domestic counterintelligence (the Second Main Directorate of the KGB), where I was responsible for counterintelligence control of the activities of American correspondents accredited to the Press Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow.’

ABOP has carried out similar events in many countries around the world, and the list of foreign politicians, diplomats, and industrialists awarded is endless.

That ABOP operated abroad with the full consent and support of Russian diplomatic missions is confirmed by an agreement concluded between ABOP and the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007:

‘On December 5, 2007, at the rector's office of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (DA MFA of Russia), an Agreement was signed between the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Academy of Security, Defence, and Law Enforcement on cooperation in the field of international relations.’

Liquidation ABOP

On June 17, 2008, the newspaper Die Welt published an article by Dirk Banse and Uwe Müller titled ‘The Russians Are Coming’ with the telling subtitle: ‘The Moscow Academy of Secret Services has discovered Germany as an operational zone. It has already established itself in Bavaria. How old KGB and STASI cadres weave their webs.’

Another article about ABOP, by Josef Hufelschulte, was published in July 2008, in issue #28 of Focus magazine, titled ‘Spies in Pointed Shoes.’ It appeared on the magazine's website on July 6, 2008.

On July 7, 2008, a summary of the Focus article was published in Russian on the INOPRESSA website under the title ‘A Dubious Order from Moscow.’

The article stated: ‘Around 100 German politicians, scientists, officers, and high-ranking police officials are recipients of the Order of Peter the Great... the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Intelligence and Counterintelligence Service are currently conducting an investigation into the academy that awards this order. It is headed by current and former generals of the Russian secret services.’ The article named some of the recipients: Günter Beckstein, Matthias Platzek, Markus Wolf, Alexander Lukashenko, and Kim Jong Il.

On September 8, the page with this article could still be found on the website inopressa.ru, but it later disappeared. On September 2, officers from the Prosecutor General's Office visited the ABOP building in Moscow at 26/40 Sadovo-Kudrinskaya Street for the first time. Apparently, the article was noticed by Inopressa immediately after the holiday period, which ends in August.

On September 22, 2008, an official announcement appeared on the website of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation stating that ‘the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation is taking measures to liquidate the Academy and the autonomous non-profit organisation ’National Committee for Public Awards,‘ as well as to bring the guilty parties to justice.’

The ‘National Committee of Public Awards’ is an organisation created in 2005 within the ABOP to award orders in its name, rather than on behalf of the ABOP. It was headed by the same General Shevchenko.

The wording ‘measures are being taken to liquidate’ indicates that the unconditional order to liquidate ABOP came from the very top.

ABOP was accused primarily of the following actions: a) ABOP ‘positions itself as a state structure... and illegally uses symbols and attributes of state power’; b) established 73 types of awards (identical to state ones), introduced ‘uniforms similar to military uniforms, as well as military ranks’; c) ABOP members were awarded the titles of full members and corresponding members of the Academy, ‘while only the Russian Academy of Sciences can have full members (academicians) and corresponding members in its ranks’; d) ABOP awarded academic titles - Doctor of Science, Candidate of Science, Professor, Associate Professor; d) ‘Employees of the Academy are issued service IDs similar to state IDs’, with the help of which ‘lobbying for the interests of various structures’ took place.

The announcement of the campaign against ABOP appeared in a wide variety of media outlets. In addition to listing the Prosecutor General's Office's accusations against ABOP, many reports mentioned several foreign politicians awarded ABOP orders: Lukashenko, Nazarbayev, Turkmenbashi Niyazov, Margaret Thatcher, the Princess of Kent, and others. There was no mention of the recent articles in Die Welt and Focus in the Russian press. Nor was there any mention of German politicians—Platzek, Beckstein, Wolf, and others—whose awards sparked a scandal in Germany and an investigation into ABOP's activities.

In the official publication of the Russian government, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in an article dedicated to the attack of the Prosecutor General’s Office on ABOP (September 25, 2008), only one award recipient was mentioned – Viktor Yanukovych.

The same article also lists the administrative code provisions applicable to the ABOP: ‘...Article 17.11, Part 2. It penalizes the production of awards resembling state ones. This article is truly exceptional, as is its neighbor, Article 17.10, which prescribes penalties for the use of state symbols.’

The nature of the coverage of the campaign against ABOP in the Russian press clearly indicates that German publications served as the pretext for the liquidation of ABOP, and that media coverage of this matter was controlled by the security services. Otherwise, there would have been much more information about ABOP's activities, easily found online.

Judging by the nature of the press coverage, the government has decided to exclude all mention of the espionage charges brought against ABOP in Germany and portray it as an insignificant public organisation created fraudulently by retired military personnel to peddle counterfeit medals and titles. And to exclude any connection not only with the intelligence services but also with any government institutions within Russia and abroad.

The phrase ‘And Russian diplomats quite officially presented ABOP regalia to foreign officials in their embassies, as if they were state awards!’ appeared only in an article in The New Times, a magazine owned by Springer.

The accusations against ABOP appear strange. Since the early 1990s, numerous public organisations have been created in Russia, including those called ‘academies,’ which have their own awards (orders, medals, etc.) and handed out ‘academic’ titles and honours. According to a correspondent for The New Times, more than 80 non-profit organisations using the word ‘academy’ in their names are registered in Moscow. All of them are, to varying degrees, connected to government agencies. None of these organisations, except ABOP, have come under attack from the Prosecutor General's Office.

All unpresented awards were confiscated from the ABOP office, apparently immediately after the Prosecutor General's Office visited. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the National Committee for Public Awards self-liquidated on September 29.

On October 9, 2008, the Khamovniki District Court in Moscow fined Viktor Shevchenko 500 rubles (approximately 125 euros), and confiscated all of his ABOP awards. Apparently, this was all that could be achieved through the courts.

This outcome clearly contradicted the Prosecutor General's Office's initial intention to liquidate ABOP. Subsequent events were apparently driven by the reluctance of ABOP's Russian members, unaware of its true role and the underlying circumstances of the ongoing events, to agree to ABOP's self-liquidation. This, unlike the fate of the ‘National Committee for Public Awards,’ formally depended on the decision of the general meeting of ABOP members, and not solely on General Viktor Shevchenko.

***

Among the many publications in the Russian press, which echo each other and the official version of the Prosecutor General's Office, several articles stand out, which provide insight into the background of the ABOP scandal and the nature of the events surrounding it.

One of them points to a conflict between the FSB and the GRU in connection with the ABOP case.

On October 2, the newspaper Arguments of the Week published an article by Vyacheslav Morozov (who signed himself as a ‘former member of ABOP’) entitled ‘The gigantic academic bluff is over.’

Morozov is a journalist specialising in FSB matters and with ties to the FSB. He is the author of the 2009 book ‘Admiral FSB’ about German Ugryumov. Admiral Ugryumov (who died in 2001 in Chechnya) was Patrushev's deputy director of the FSB and was responsible for the FSB's Chechen policy. In Alexander Goldfarb's 2007 book ‘Sasha, Volodya, Boris: The Story of a Murder,’ Admiral German Ugryumov is named as a possible organiser of the September 1999 Moscow apartment bombings.

Morozov's biography states that as a journalist for the American company ‘NBC-news’ he ‘visited many Russian hot spots.’

According to Morozov, ‘eggheaded military counterintelligence officers’ organised ABOP in 1999 in accordance with a decision of the Russian Security Council. Viktor Shevchenko is referred to in the article as a colonel.

Military counterintelligence is a function of the KGB, although Morozov's article, as will become clear from what follows, is directed against the GRU.

According to Morozov, ABOP was conceived as a public organisation intended to ensure Putin's election to a second term – ‘Something like a party of Russia's scientific elite. To achieve this, they united scientists in the fields of defence, security, and law enforcement under one roof... When the alliance of pro-presidential parties was created, the need for the academy's services disappeared. Oversight of ABOP was lifted. The academy went into disarray.’ After which, it turned into a fraudulent outfit engaged in fraudulent schemes, primarily selling counterfeit medals.

Morozov does not mention the accusations of espionage or any publications in the German press in 2008.

However, he, perhaps the only journalist who has written about ABOP, cites a 2005 article by Moscow correspondent Klussman from Der Spiegel magazine, ‘Shining Orders,’ which described the activities of the Academy of National Security, Defence, and Law Enforcement (ANBOP), a higher education institution organised by ABOP and where, according to Klussman, spies were trained. Morozov himself provides a list of 20 names of the Academy's professors—‘names of espionage specialists with the rank of GRU colonels and academic degrees.’

The article hints that the GRU is to blame for the Academy's exposure and that this is ‘reason for an investigation by special FSB means.’

The article ends with a proposal to preserve ABOP by changing its leadership.

The list of names of ‘GRU colonels’ cited by Morozov can indeed be found online, but not on the ABOP website, but on the website of the ‘Web’ agency, headed by ‘security colonel’ Pushkarev, who is also the vice-rector for research at the Academy of National Security, Protection, and Law Enforcement—the higher education institution founded by ABOP.

Among the teachers, there are by no means only GRU colonels; there are representatives of other special services as well, but among those whose ranks and branch of service are indicated, GRU colonels do indeed predominate.

ANBOP successfully survived the liquidation of ABOP and continued to exist as a state university with many branches in different regions of Russia.

***

Of extreme interest is Andrei Soldatov’s article, which was published a week after Morozov’s article in the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, entitled ‘‘Crusts’ in Uniform’ (Novaya Gazeta, 10/09/2008).

Andrei Soldatov is a journalist specialising in Russian intelligence services and writing for the opposition press. He is the author (along with Irina Bogorad) of the book ‘The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB,’ published in 2010 in England and the United States. Soldatov and Bogorad are the owners of the online magazine Agentura.ru.

Soldatov's article, like other articles, focuses on the ABOP's activities in awarding orders and titles. It also omits German publications and names only those foreigners awarded by ABOP whose names appear in other publications (Tymoshenko, Niyazov, Lukashenko, Thatcher, etc.).

Soldatov, however, points out that ABOP was initially supported by Mikhail Fradkov, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service and former prime minister.

Furthermore, Soldatov, citing certain ‘Swiss journalists,’ writes that a branch of the Russian company GRS-Group, GRS Group Europe AG, is registered in the canton of Zug. This company's website lists the same address where the ABOP office was located until March 2008 (Komsomolsky Prospekt 18), and also features ABOP symbols.

In 2010, the company's website listed a different address.

Soldatov writes that ‘the services provided by GRS-Group are so diverse (from PR to security) that it's difficult to understand what exactly this organisation does. Despite the fact that the academy and GRS Group have the same phone numbers, Viktor Shevchenko claims he's never heard of this organisation.’

According to its website, GRS Group is directly linked to intelligence agencies and operates in many countries around the world. Specifically, the article ‘How and Why Should We Monitor the Internet?’ posted on the website states that one of GRS Media Group's divisions, the information and analytical agency ‘Red Line,’ is ‘an organisation that for six years has specialised in, among other things, internet monitoring and, as they say here, 'covert work on specific information projects.'’

Only the page of one of the holding's branches, GRS Media Group, lists the names of its executives. The other groups within the holding—GRS Security Group and GRS Strategy Group—provide virtually no information about themselves. The exception is one French name: Charles E. Rollet (CEO of GRS Group).

The History and Development page states:

"In 1997, this company was privatized to offer its experience and knowledge to any company that needed to protect its operations in a constantly changing environment.

In 2004, a major shift in our services occurred. New companies were established to support our clients' development, primarily by providing strategic consulting, trade representation in the CIS, and assistance with the establishment of Russian companies abroad.

In 2005, the company expanded into other areas, such as helicopter airfield construction and document archiving. The goal was to expand into new areas and meet growing needs.

2007 marked our tenth anniversary and the launch of a third group of activities, together with the media, focused on PR, IR and GR activities; again, in order to offer our clients a wider and more comprehensive range of solutions."

The phrase ‘The company was privatized in 1997’ likely means that it was originally a government agency, possibly a division of the secret services. The creation of ABOP (with the same address) in 1999 can be seen as another, parallel version of the secret services' camouflage—this time as a public organisation rather than a commercial one.

The name of the Russian holding company is virtually identical to that of another non-Russian company, GRS Group, which in 2008 had offices worldwide, including in Germany (Munich). However, it appears to be unrelated to the Russian firm. Its former website now links to the website of Kinsey Allen International (the addresses of its offices in various countries are generally the same as those of GRS Group).

The Swiss branch of the Russian holding company is called GRS Group Europe AG and was registered in the canton of Zug on December 14, 2007, in the names of five individuals—two Swiss and three Russian citizens. Share capital is 100,000 Swiss francs.

One of the Russian citizens (Andrey Bayl) is listed as residing in Hamburg. The others, Yaroslav Semin and Oleg Mikhaylov, are residents of Moscow. On January 11, 2008, the company changed its location and moved to Baar (canton of Zug).

The purpose of the company’s creation is ‘Verwaltung und Management internationaler Beteiligungs- und Handelsgesellschaften’.

Oleg Mikhailov can be identified as the Director of the External Communications Department of Svyazinvest OJSC. Svyazinvest is the largest telecommunications company in Russia.

Oleg Mikhailov, according to published biographies, is a career military man who graduated from the Missile Forces Command School (a colleague of Viktor Shevchenko's in the same branch of the military) and is a specialist in spacecraft control. A mention in his biography of his postgraduate studies at the Scientific Research Institute of the USSR General Staff points to his affiliation with the GRU. His discharge from the military and entry into business just seven years after graduating from the school most likely signifies his transfer to the ‘active reserve,’ meaning continued work for the intelligence services as an employee of a commercial firm.

Viktor Shevchenko, according to Soldatov, claimed that he had never heard of an organisation called GRS Group.

***

Shortly after the publication, Andrei Soldatov was fired from Novaya Gazeta for an unclear reason, although he continued to publish there. He stated on the website Agentura.ru that he believed his dismissal was related to one of his recent publications in Novaya Gazeta, which included an article about ABOP.

According to Viktor Shevchenko, as cited by Soldatov, the academy intended to continue operating, but was scheduled to change its name at the end of October. Apparently, this was the plan of the ABOP's government overseers.

However, at the ‘extraordinary conference’ of ABOP held in Moscow on September 30, the majority of those gathered refused to disband ABOP.

An account of what happened at the meeting can be found in Sergei Komkov's article ‘Academy of Disorder’ on the website ‘For the Revival of Domestic Science.’ Komkov is a member of the Association of Russian Organised Crime and Organisations (ABOP) and President of the All-Russian Education Foundation (a pseudo-public organisation created in 1991 by the Russian government for unclear propaganda purposes).

In the first part of the article, Komkov indirectly confirms that the academy worked for the secret services:

"The idea of ​​creating ABOP, according to its current leaders, was supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And this is no coincidence.

Putin, a career FSB officer, is well aware that the heads of intelligence agencies in the US, Israel, Great Britain, and other Western countries operate today with the direct involvement of such structures. There, most of these ‘retirees’ are in demand and work for the benefit of the intelligence agencies under the ‘cover’ of various public and scientific organisations. Contracts are signed with them to conduct research and expert work. They actively participate in the preparation and development of strategic doctrines and tactical operations.

Komkov places responsibility for the ABOP scandal on Western intelligence agencies: ‘...any great idea always has external and internal enemies. The external enemy was Western intelligence agencies, who quickly realised the dangers of accumulating the intellectual potential of Russian military 'retirees.' And literally in a short period of time, the pliant and corrupt Western media outlets planted the story that ABOP was practically a shadow government in Russia with unlimited powers. Just how well American, Israeli, and British intelligence agencies can do this can be seen in the example of the American military aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.’

Moreover, according to Komkov, by distributing awards presented as state ones, ABOP compromised itself: ‘The idea of ​​concentrating the best intellectual forces of the Russian special services was destroyed from within. Amid all this tinsel and unworthy games of 'generals,' the key element—the creation of a think tank to combat the external enemy that is currently attempting to destroy the Russian state—was lost.’

Komkov's version effectively discredits the official version of the Prosecutor General's Office and the media, which portrays ABOP as a meaningless organisation of retired people engaged in low-level business.

Most likely, a conflict arose within ABOP between members of the special services, privy to the nuances of ABOP's actual activities and prepared to carry out orders from above to disband, and many other members who were not fully privy to ABOP's functions and who were unwilling to voluntarily renounce their orders, titles, and ranks.

According to Komkov, a scandal erupted at the ABOP conference, with shouting and insults. Viktor Shevchenko ‘hinted at the higher authorities,’ who recommended self-dissolution, but they disagreed. And the decision was made to preserve the academy.

A new president of the ABOP, Alexander Stefanov, and a new presidium of 33 members were elected. Komkov described Stefanov as ‘an obedient and convenient 'academic' photographer for the capitulating General Shevchenko.’

In conclusion, Komkov wrote: ‘In the near future, as scripted by representatives of American and Israeli intelligence agencies, their main competitor, the all-Russian public organisation 'Academy of Security, Defence, and Law Enforcement,' will pass away. The Supreme Court of Russia will, of course, uphold the Prosecutor General's Office's claim to liquidate the organisation...’

This suggests that the theory about the Prosecutor General's Office's sudden interest in the fact that ABOP awards ‘resembled state awards’ was not taken seriously within ABOP. There was a real reason for this circulating theory: the exposure of ABOP as a spy organisation by Western intelligence agencies. However, only American and Israeli agencies are mentioned. Not a single hint that the failure occurred in Germany ever made it into the Russian press.

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The persistence of some members of ABOP in their desire to preserve it made necessary the procedure of legal liquidation of ABOP.

On December 8, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation considered the application of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to close the All-Russian public organisation ‘Academy of Security, Defence and Law and Order Problems.’

On December 10, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled to uphold the petition of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and liquidate ABOP. ABOP's leadership appealed the court's decision, but on February 19, 2009, ‘By ruling of the judicial panel, the Supreme Court's decision to liquidate the all-Russian public organisation 'Academy of Security, Defence, and Law Enforcement', based on the petition of the Prosecutor General, was upheld.’

On the ABOP website, which was completely redesigned in October 2008 and stripped of all the signs and symbols the Academy had been accused of using, two documents expressing ABOP's position could be found: a speech by an ABOP lawyer at a Supreme Court hearing (the text is dated December 12, 2008) and a cassation appeal filed after that decision. The appeal was signed by ABOP's authorised representative, N. Tutov.

Both documents list numerous violations of the law that, according to ABOP, the Prosecutor General's Office committed. They also analyze in detail the false interpretations of the law that the Prosecutor's Office used to justify its claims against ABOP.

Specifically, a list of charges brought by the prosecutor is provided, guilt for which ‘cannot be established by either the prosecutor or the civil court and is subject to proof through administrative and criminal proceedings.’ The final passage of the cassation appeal (paragraph 9) is extremely interesting, beginning with a quote from the court ruling on the liquidation of ABOP: ‘The violations of Russian Federation law committed are gross and repeated. As a result of these violations, a systematic opinion has been formed both domestically and internationally regarding ABOP LLC as an entity implementing state functions. Therefore, the liquidation of the public organisation is a necessary measure to protect the rights and legitimate interests of others violated as a result of this organisation's activities.’

Everything is clear and understandable. The only thing that remains unclear is whether Condoleezza Rice, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the heads of Mossad and MI6 were informed of this court ruling. They will surely consider the court's decision timely and highly necessary and will express their complete satisfaction. They are always delighted when Russia flogs itself like Gogol's non-commissioned officer's widow.

Let me quote a Mossad agent working under cover of the Tel Aviv Literary Club, who published an article on the website of the same name entitled ‘State Security on a Voluntary Basis.’

The author writes: ‘Of course, ABOP is pure bluff. Or, to use Chekist jargon, a 'cover-up.' The 'academy' with its thousands of 'professors' has no connection to science, not even the most remote one.’

A huge KGB structure, secretly financed by the state, is disguised as a public organisation. The guise of a ‘public organisation’ allows ‘academicians’ to wear civilian clothes, speak on behalf of the public, and disguise themselves as decorative cultural figures.

In part, this is reminiscent of the various "public organisations" of Soviet times, created and controlled by the KGB"...

It is clear from this that the liquidation of the Academy is not protecting Russia's interests, but rather the interests of foreign intelligence agencies that actively use public organisations for their own purposes, as is openly stated in the court's decision."

Here is a quote from Dmitry Khmelnitsky’s article ‘State Security on a Voluntary Basis,’ published in the Israeli magazine ‘22’ (No. 138, 2005) and in its electronic version on the website of the Tel Aviv Literary Club.

This is the first article chronologically written about ABOP. It was written for the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta in the fall of 2005 and prepared for publication there, but was never published. The editorial explanation went something like this: ‘We don't want to advertise this organisation.’ The author speculates that publication in the newspaper was suppressed by the relevant authorities.

In essence, the authors of the cassation appeal confirm the prosecutor's version that ABOP compromised state bodies with its foreign activities, and regret that its dissolution will benefit the ‘enemies of Russia’ and enemy intelligence services.

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Overall, the ABOP liquidation procedure confirms the conclusions of the authors of German publications that the Academy was engaged in espionage activities and the recruitment of agents abroad.

Judging by the swift actions of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Supreme Court, orders came from the very top of the political system, most likely from Putin, to immediately liquidate ABOP and portray it as having no connection whatsoever to the state. The nature of press publications indicates strict control over their content. No mention was allowed of the accusations of espionage leveled in German publications in the summer of 2008; no mention was allowed of the fact that ABOP medals were awarded in large numbers to heads of state, diplomats, and military attachés from a wide variety of countries; no mention was allowed of the fact that the awards ceremonies took place with the participation of officials, Russian ambassadors, and consuls, in a ceremonial setting, and on the grounds of embassies and consulates.

There were no mentions at all in the press of the ABOP's activities abroad, although the geography of the trips of General Shevchenko and other ABOP representatives was extremely extensive.

Publishing all the names of those awarded and those giving them could have sparked a huge diplomatic scandal. Even opposition media outlets couldn't break this taboo, although information on the matter was easily obtained. All of ABOP's awards activities were covered in detail in the press and on the ABOP website.

Due to the urgency of the matter, the pretext for the liquidation of ABOP was based on accusations that did not stand up to the slightest criticism, and the liquidation procedure itself was carried out in violation of the law (as detailed in the statements of ABOP's lawyers). In any case, the campaign against ABOP did not affect numerous other, similar organisations that also distribute their own ‘orders’ and ‘academic titles’ in Russia and abroad.

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