MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. CIS special services need to be an instrument for protecting its member states from the West’s attempts at exerting influence, Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin said in response to journalists’ questions after the 17th conference of the association’s security and intelligence chiefs in Moscow on Wednesday.

"It is not a secret to anyone that the group of Western countries that I mentioned [the SVR chief spoke about ‘the United States and other Western countries’ at the conference] would like our community, the community of independent states, and each state within this community to radically alter its internal and foreign policy and integration processes in the former Soviet space to grind to a halt," Russia’s intelligence chief said.

"Western countries are making attempts quite actively and sometimes outright aggressively to introduce their own, totalitarian and liberal values, as I call them, into our society. We, however, are safeguarding our values, general human principles and are ready to protect them using all legitimate means and instruments," Naryshkin pointed out.

Among these instruments for protecting sovereignty and independence, Russia’s intelligence chief mentioned "special services and intelligence agencies of our countries that are faced with a broad range of tasks for exposing and preventing a whole array of external threats to our states, our citizens, an analysis and forecasting of developments in particular regions of the world, including in so-called instability areas and, of course, assistance to the economic and technological development of our countries".