KGB changed its mind

The KGB confirms the TV report about uncovering of the U.S. spy network, aired on 23 March in the evening analytical programme Week’s Panorama on the First TV Channel. Valer Nedachayeu, head of the KGB center of information and public relations, said in the interview to BelaPAN.

“The report, shown on the First Channel, represents true facts,” he said. But V. Nedachayeu didn’t say whether the members of the spy ring had been detained and charged.

Valer Nedachayeu, head of the KGB center of information and public relations, said yesterday he had no information about allegedly caught American spies.

It should be reminded that the evening analytical programme Week’s Panorama said on 23 March the U.S. spy network had been uncovered in Belarus. Most of the members of the group were detained on 13 March in a safe house, situated half a kilometre from the U.S. embassy, the first Channel reported.

The programme said the group had been organised by the U.S. diplomatic mission in Minsk, it consisted of 10 Belarusian citizens, and its task was to collect and pass to the United States information for the use to the detriment of Belarus. The collected data, according to the authors of the report, were sent to a BFI agent, who worked in the United States embassy. The report named two embassy officers – Kurt Finley and Bernard Nixon.

In the interview to BelaPAN on 24 March the US Charge d’affaires in Belarus Jonathan Moore denied accusations of spying levelled against the embassy’s office. “We have no spies operating in Belarus,” he said. According to him, K. Finley and B. Nixon are officers of security service in the U.S. embassy, not FBI agents. He explained they were part of the diplomatic security service, which was a part of the Department of State. FBI officers who work with U.S. embassies abroad usually hold the position of legal attaché, but the embassy in Minsk has no such position, he explained. A legal attaché for this region works in Kyiv. He visited Minsk, had meetings including those with representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. So, the Belarusian authorities are well informed about the real state of things.