KALININGRAD, December 30. /TASS/. In Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad Region the federal security service FSB has upset attempts by the secret services of Latvia and Lithuania to use two retired career military for gathering military information, including details of the Baltic Fleet’s infrastructures, the press office of the local FSB department told TASS. Both men proved unaware of the real aims of the questions they were invited to answer.
"Two residents of the Kaliningrad Region were pretty close to helping Lithuanian and Latvian secret services obtain restricted access information from the Baltic Fleet’s office," the FSB said. "The men who were gathering and keeping information were ignorant their actions might be interpreted as high treason. No information has been handed over to foreign secret services so far. Otherwise, they might have been indicted under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code (high treason), the FSB’s press-service said. Both former military have been "officially warned of the impermissibility of their actions."
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The FSB said the residents of Kaliningrad had got acquainted with Lithuanian and Latvian citizens who introduced themselves as history enthusiasts particularly interested in the period of World War I and World War II and the related events in the Kaliningrad Region (former East Prussia). The Latvians and Lithuanians persuaded their Russian contacts they were looking for cultural and historical artifacts and valuables. They claimed they had information about secret hiding places left by the former residents of East Prussia after deportation from the newly-established Kaliningrad Region.
The foreign acquaintances asked two former Russian retirees to use their old-time military connections to gather for reward information about the locations of military hardware (tanks and helicopters) and weapons (artillery pieces of German and Russian manufacture) and the Baltic Fleet’s communication infrastructures. This information belongs with the restricted access category, but the Russians remained unaware of that.
Both residents of Kaliningrad kept in touch with their new acquaintances via the Internet. The Western secret services’ intentions were exposed as a result of detective efforts.
The Lithuanian and Latvian citizens involved have been prohibited from entering Russian territory.