MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. Enduring threats to Russia’s national security emanate from the Baltic states and Poland, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin told reporters during a monument unveiling ceremony.
Naryshkin was asked to comment on whether the fact that the new statue of his predecessor, Felix Dzerzhinsky, faces northwest, just like the older, well-known monument to Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square in downtown Moscow previously had, represents a symbolic indication of the threats emanating from Poland and the three Baltic states. In response, the SVR head said: "Obviously, our country is facing threats [from beyond] its northwest [border]." Meanwhile, he explained, that there simply had not been any authorization to "reorient the direction in which the protagonist depicted by the monument is facing," as the statue is an exact replica of the original that once stood on Lubyanka Square.
Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Soviet revolutionary and statesman, was the founder and first chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (known by its Russian abbreviation as the "VChK" or the "Cheka") for combatting counter-revolution and sabotage. The new monument to Dzerzhinsky was unveiled on Monday on the premises of the SVR’s headquarters in the Yasenevo District in southern Moscow.