Andrei Soldatov reveals that the Russia’s Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, has granted the same office that responds to journalists requests licence to search their homes, wiretap them and place them under surveillance

Order No 343, signed by FSB director Alexander Bortnikov on 15 July 2009 expanded the list of FSB generals allowed “to initiate a petition to conduct a counterintelligence measures that restrict the constitutional rights of citizens” (i.e. the right to privacy of correspondence and communications, as well as the inviolability of the home). These generals have the authority to order wiretapping, surveillance and searching of premises.

The panel was first established on 14 September 2007. Initially it consisted of heads of counter-intelligence sections, the department of economic security, border guards, and the FSB’s leadership. The July order significantly expanded it to include the Directorate for Assistance Programmes (UPS). This division is in charge of dealing with journalists, and the Centre for Public Communications (the press office of the FSB) is part of it.

There are limited grounds for the FSB to carry out counter-intelligence actions. These include the need to gather information about the activities which pose a threat to Russia; to protect information which constitutes a state secret; to monitor people who provide or have provided the FSB with confidential assistance; to ensure the FSB’s own security, the existence of information regarding signs of intelligence and other activity by foreign states’ secret services and by individuals aimed at inflicting damage on Russian security, and the requests of the secret services of other countries.

Russia’s journalists are not obvious “clients” of the list — no bearers of state secrets, they might divulge secrets or names of agents only if they are given access to state secrets by FSB officers or other officials. The FSB has special units to protect every type of secret from the Directorate of Counterintelligence Support, to transportation, to military counterintelligence, and these departments usually initiate prosecutions after publications.

Lawyers and FSB officers I questioned told me its possible the UPS asked for the surveillance licence not to initiate criminal proceedings, but to keep a closer eye on journalists. Previously the UPS chief had to ask the leadership or the counterintelligence department to intercept journalists’ correspondence, as there is a waiting list for such activities in the FS the leadership might have decided that listening in on a real spy was more important. Now the head of UPS is able just to give an order.

The activities of the UPS have gone beyond the borders appropriate for a press office ever since its formation. When the directorate was established in 1999 it embarrassed many FSB case officers, who were not happy that the name of directorate had revealed what was presumably a confidential term. “Assistance programmes” or “assistance operations,” were known as “active measures” during the Cold War, and were intended to change the policy or position of a foreign government in a way that would “assist” the Soviet position. Thus, the FSB Centre for public communications carried out tasks very similar to those of a psyops unit. It was also known that one of the departments of Centre for Public Communications of the FSB was tasked to monitor publications to determine the authorship of articles written under a pseudonym.

Bortnikov’s order has changed the situation for journalists. In the 1990s monitoring publications and even identifying authors was a legitimate function of the FSB press office. But when, in 1999, the FSB had merged public affairs with propaganda it was already far beyond the limits: it clearly undermined the credibility of information disseminated by the FSB. The power to carry out surveillance marks a new step in the manipulation of media.

FSB units are divided into operational and support units. Some, for instance counterintelligence or counter-terrorism consist of operatives who might recruit agents. Support units include the capital construction directorate, the FSB’s medical department, human resources and, as it was long believed, the press office.

However, the right to order surveillance is the hallmark of an operational unit. When I put it to the duty officer at the FSB Centre for Public Communications that UPS is an operational unit he just said that “it is defined by our internal regulatory documents and nobody will tell you.”

Andrei Soldatov is editor of Agentura.ru. He worked for Novaya Gazeta from January 2006 to November 2008. Soldatov’s book with co-author Irina Borogan, The New Nobility, about the Russian secret services, is published later this year by Public Affairs Books.

There may be more crossovers in the strategies, and fates, of the two titles than people realise.

I joined Novaya Gazeta in January 2006, a few months before Lebedev and Mikhail Gorbachev announced their decision to buy the paper. I was put in charge of covering the Russian secret services and I don’t remember any attempts by my proprietor to change or halt my stories in spite of his KGB past.

Yet I remain to be convinced that he came to our oppositional paper because of any liberal views. From the 1990s Lebedev was surrounded by journalists from the paper Komsomolskaya Pravda. Pavel Vedenyapin, Lebedev’s close associate on the media, came from that stable, as does the current editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov.

Komsomolskaya Pravda enjoyed the largest circulation of any Soviet daily. It was famous not for its investigations, or for its political positioning, but for launching numerous popular and populist campaigns to mobilise public opinion on populist issues: for instance, a campaign to persuade members of the public, especially in rural areas, to hand in illegal firearms. Campaigns such as these were difficult to organise without the support of the Kremlin.

In the liberal 1990s, Komsomolskaya Pravda turned into sensationalist tabloid, although it maintained close ties with the siloviki (the security services). Sergei Ivanov, who in August 2006 took over the press office of the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, was for some years the paper’s New York correspondent.

Novaya Gazeta had gained a reputation for being not just the most outspoken oppositional paper, but for its record of high-profile investigations, led by Yuri Shchekochikhin and Anna Politkovskaya. When Lebedev took over, the paper was facing its biggest crisis. Shchekochikhin had been killed, reportedly poisoned, in July 2003, while Politkovskaya had been gunned down by assassins in October 2006. The new owner faced a difficult choice — develop the investigations section, or turn to public campaigns as a time-honoured means of increasing the paper’s influence and popularity.

Lebedev chose more of the latter than former. Novaya Gazeta became involved in numerous public campaigns, partly organised by Lebedev: one was the idea of building a memorial to the victims of the Gulag. This was supported by Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev.

In this light the “Sorry London” campaign carried out by the Evening Standard, with its promises to take a more “positive” approach, looks more understandable.

For all his wealth and public profile, Lebedev has not increased Novaya Gazeta’s editorial resources: it still has the lowest salaries amongst Moscow-based papers, and the new computers in the editorial office appear to be the only real investment. His first attempt to launch his own paper turned out to be disaster. In autumn 2007 he started the tabloid Moskovsky Korrespondent, modelling it in part on Komsomolskaya Pravda. Within months he was forced to suspend the paper and to fire its editor when it reported that President Putin had left his wife to marry a gymnast. It later was forced to apologise. In November 2008, Novaya Gazeta made a number of journalists in its political and investigations sections redundant, including myself.

As Russia was hit by the global financial crisis, Lebedev, like other magnates, was forced to go cap in hand to the state for a bail out. Last week, facing a cash crunch, he put his global financial reputation ahead of the needs of the paper when he paid the salaries of the troubled German budget airline Blue Wings –– leaving the staff of Novaya Gazeta to wait, and worry, unpaid.

Andrei Soldatov is editor of Agentura.Ru website. He worked for Novaya Gazeta from January 2006-November 2008. Soldatov and Irina Borogan are working on a book, The New Nobility, about the Russian secret services for PublicAffairs Books to be published in 2010