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The 53rd session of the Council of heads of security agencies and special services of CIS member-countries took place in Baku
In October 2023, Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, hosted the session of the heads of national security agencies from CIS countries, where they discussed the current geopolitical situations and ways to jointly counteract new challenges and threats.
Russia – Azerbaijan interaction
Nikolay Patrushev, the Secretary of the RF Security Council, visited Baku within the framework of his scheduled working trip. He has bilateral consultations with his colleagues from CIS on a regular basis.
This time, the relevant issues of cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan in the sphere of global and regional security including the security in the Southern Caucasus were discussed. Separate focus was made on the outlook for interaction of the law enforcement agencies and secret services of both countries including joint counteracting illegal drugs trafficking and crime in the sphere of information and communication technology.
Nikolay Patrushev, the Secretary of the RF Security Council, and Ramil Usubov, the Secretary of the Security Council of Azerbaijan, summarized the results of the consultations with participation of representatives of the Security Councils’ staff, the relevant ministries and agencies of both countries.
The parties confirmed the plans for further enhancement of cooperation between Moscow and Baku in all the spheres in pursuance of the Allied Interaction Declaration signed by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev on 22 February 2022.
Nikolay Patrushev, the Secretary of the RF Security Council, was received by Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, who emphasized that the bilateral relations are the relations of allies, which is manifested in all the spheres. The head of Azerbaijan expressed his confidence in further enhancement of cooperation with Russia in the spheres of regional security, in economic, transportation and other spheres.
After that visit, the 53rd session of the Council of heads of security agencies and special services of CIS member-countries took place in Baku.
We need to enhance the cooperation between secret services
In his speech before the participants of the 53rd session of the Council of heads of security agencies and special services of CIS member-countries, Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, talked about the need to enhance the cooperation between secret services emphasizing the importance of information exchange: «Information is very important, including – from the standpoint of its quick delivery and adequate response. And of course, close interaction between our countries creates great opportunities for our cooperation being sincere, task-oriented, results-driven and focused on liquidation or prevention of potential threats».
Ilham Aliyev also said that «in the regions, where our countries are located, there are external threats, of course, and operational work along these lines allows for us to minimize the risks. It’s gratifying to see that across our common space the social and political stability is becoming stronger, and that our countries are successfully counteracting many challenges».
As for Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev emphasized, «there are no longer any internal threats. Three weeks ago, our actions resulted in complete restoration of the sovereignty of Azerbaijan, and this opens up new opportunities for us to strengthen security and achieve peace in our region. This is our intent, and we believe there is no alternative to that».
The President of Azerbaijan also talked about the details of anti-terrorist operation on September 19, which lasted less than 24 hours. Eventually, the Armenian army in Karabakh was completely disarmed, and Baku established its full control over its territory.
According to Ilham Aliyev, «the plan for re-integration of the Armenian population of Karabakh has already been published. The call was made to the Armenian citizens to stay in their homes, because our operation was absolutely of a pin-point character. The civilian infrastructure, civilian facilities and civilians were not damaged in any way».
The attempts to split CIS
From the time of the previous meeting of the Council of heads of security agencies and special services of CIS member-countries, the international situation became much more complicated, and this resulted not just in noticeable aggravation of challenges across the CIS area – new threats to the CIS member-countries were formed, as was emphasized by Alexander Bortnikov, Head of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) and the chairman of the Council.
The USA and their allies deployed the extensive work to impair the situation in the CIS countries, exercise pressure on the disliked states via sanctions, block the logistics routes and creation of the new transportation corridors. By doing so, the westerners themselves are enhancing the negative implications of the global economic crisis, Bortnikov noted.
At the same time, the collective West, not paying attention to the established practices of international law, is searching for the most efficient forms of blackmailing and intimidating the dissenters, attempting to break the friendly relations between the CIS member-states and their neighbors.
The main objective of the West is to maintain their dominance withing the unipolar world order and to continue their neo-colonial policy, Bortnikov explained. One of the main targets of Washington and its cohorts are the integration projects across the Eurasia within such formats as CIS, EAEU, CSTO and SCO.
Bortnikov said that the West was using its secret services, as well as controlled NGOs and media. They are inciting ethnic and religious discord, as well as armed conflicts in the CIS countries, thus creating the pre-requisites for political crises and the necessary conditions for implementing the «color revolutions» scenarios.
On top of that, the external forces are actively stoking up social problems underpinning the radicalization of the most vulnerable groups in the society, youth, first of all. These groups are becoming the «breeding medium» for the extremist and terrorist organizations, as well criminal groups closely connected with them. Having come under the influence of criminals, people get engaged into the sub-cultures encouraging violence and pseudo-values, join the ranks of «soldiers of fortune» participating in combat actions in different trouble zones, as well as hackers’ groups engaged in various sabotage in the cyber space, the FSB Director noted.
Conflict potential growth
Alexander Bortnikov called international terrorism the most acute threat to the security of the CIS countries, which the West is actively using as a tool to promote it geopolitical and economic interests.
The cold-war confrontation scenarios are now viewed by the West as the most relevant ones, and that has already resulted in breaking-up the established anti-terrorist cooperation, Bortnikov remarked. According to him, the conflict potential on the CIS frontiers has grown substantially.
The FSB Director separately spoke about the situation in the CIS «soft belly» – in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
American and British secret services play a lead role in destabilizing the situation in Afghanistan area, he noted. The CIA and MI-6 are restoring their intelligence presence in a number of the key provinces of Afghanistan, the issue of bringing back the American military bases into the country is currently under review, Bortnikov added.
At the same time, the westerners continue to split the ranks of Taliban leadership, to sabotage the efforts of Kabul to revive the national economy and implement infrastructural projects with participation of third countries.
The main efforts of Anglo-Saxons are focused on forming the «non-stability belt» at the southern CIS borders. To do that, they continue to recruit the armed insurgents from international terrorist organizations acting in Iraq, Syria, a number of other Asian and African countries, they are being relocated to the North of Afghanistan. In several training camps the bandits are trained in the skills of using modern weapons including those from the armories left by the Western coalition, using UAVs, the most modern means of communication and surveillance, the FSB Director noted.
Alexander Bortnikov pointed at the growing role of al-Qaida*, who together with the Islamic State – Khorasan Province*, a branch of ISIS*, is actively participating in training, ideological and technical preparation of the controlled terrorist groups.
The FSB Director provided the following statistics to confirm his words: today, the general headcount of al-Qaida is over 1.5 thousand insurgents, and its nodes are especially active in more than 20 Afghan provinces, mainly in the South-East of the country. The Eastern region of Nuristan is a center for these groups, as it hosts the transportation corridor between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
As for the insurgent from the Islamic State – Khorasan Province, their number is close to 6.5 thousand people acting across the entire Northern frontier area and in the center of Afghanistan. On the immediate horizon, the Islamic State – Khorasan Province may achieve the potential allowing for terrorist attacks beyond Afghanistan, Bortnikov warned.
Expansion plans of insurgents
The ringleaders of international terrorist organizations are not hiding their plans to unite the isolated groupings and to implement their expansion into the adjacent countries, first of all – into Central Asia and Russia, the FSB Director informed.
For these purposes, the emissaries of jihadists are preparing special ideological base by cultivating and recruiting radical representatives of the Muslim Ummah across the CIS area. They concentrate on the persons, who never before got into the focus of special services or law enforcement agencies.
Alexander Bortnikov also shared information with his colleagues about the citizens of the Central Asian countries who had joined the ranks of international terrorists participating in reconnaissance of the frontier lads identifying the vulnerable areas for further raiding groups terrorist attacking means insertion. The priority objective of terrorists is to seize power in the Central Asian countries, first of all – in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and to include them into the so-called Global Caliphate, the FSB Director informed, adding that American and British secret services are active participating in this, as well.
Naturally, the USA and NATO today at a pretext of containment the Afghani terrorist threat started to actively impose their military and technical services including the sphere of protecting the borders on the Central Asian countries, Bortnikov said. According to him, the objective of the westerners is to assure their military presence across the CIS area and introducing new splitting lines between the Commonwealth member-states.
Ukraine is the Troyan Horse of the West
The above information about the intents and plans of terrorists with respect of the CIS southern area – is not a mere assertion, Bortnikov remarked, using the example of Ukraine, who turned with the help of the USA and NATO allies into a source of military and terrorist threats on the frontier of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
The Western intelligence agencies and NGOs are acting in the interests of Ukrainian armed forces, recruiting international terrorists, nazi and mercenaries trained in Afghanistan, Middle East, Europe and overseas, the FSB Director informed. Only in the EU member-states, 17 training camps are acting under the auspices of NATO secret services, he said. The westerners are actively assisting in relocating the armed insurgents into the Ukrainian conflict zone, he added.
According to Bortnikov, there is reliable information that in the Ichkerian and Crimea Tatars detachments operating against Russia on the Ukrainian side, the representatives of ISIS and similar terrorist organizations are fighting. They are members of the raiding groups inserted into Russian territories for terrorist attacks.
Representatives of 13 European private military companies and of 9 foreign military proxy-detachments are fighting against Russia, 794 mercenaries from 35 countries of the world were identified, the FSB Director added.
At the same time, the West is stepping-up the supplies of heavy weapons and far-ranging arms, the prohibited cluster bomb units, depleted uranium shells, combat air-based and sea-based UAVs, modern systems of control and communications; the issue of providing multi-functional fighter planes of the 4th generation F-16 to Kyiv is under review, Bortnikov reminded. In addition, the West is proving the intelligence information to the military groups acting in the Ukrainian conflict zone, participates in planning and coordination of combat actions engaging the NATO serving officers.
As the result of such purposeful behavior of the Western coalition, Ukraine has turned into the training grounds for terrorists and mercenaries in the sphere of modern warfare methods and applying this experience in CIS and other regions of the world, Bortnikov emphasized.
Nuclear terrorism attempts
In the context of the above, Alexander Bortnikov drew the attention of his CIS colleagues to the fact that Kyiv guided by the West already started using nuclear terrorism. He informed that in August 2023, FSB arrested the members of the Ukrainian raider group. It was identified that their training and planning of their operations was organized by the officers of the British army special operations forces. The tasks of the group were acts of sabotage in Russia against military targets, oil, transportation and other critical infrastructure facilities, as well as against Smolensk and Kursk nuclear power plants. There were similar aggression attempts with respect to Leningrad and Kalinin nuclear power plants, about which FSB informed in the end of the last May. Overall, due to the counter-sabotage activities, more than 20 explosive devices were destroyed, which had been placed by Ukrainian raiders on the transmission towers of the nuclear power plants. Their demolition was targeted at violating the technology process of the NPP operations. This resulted in emergency shutdown of the second generating unit of Kursk nuclear power plant, Bortnikov informed.
Such actions by the Ukrainian military intelligence and their British mentors should be qualified only as nuclear terrorism. At the same time, the FSB Director wondered if the London leadership recognized the reckless nature of actions of their special services? And what these maniacs were eventually counting on, when they escalated the terrorist threats to a higher level?
These events require that the global community comes up with drastically new approaches to counteracting terrorism, its ideologists, sponsors and promoters, Alexander Bortnikov, the Director of the Federal Security Service of Russia emphasized.
Struggling for the future of the World
Sergey Naryshkin, the Director of Russian Foreign Intelligence Agency (SVR), described the general situation in his speech at the session of the Council of heads of security agencies and special services of CIS member-countries.
The information received by SVR evidences the aggravation of struggle for the future world order. According to Naryshkin, globally we deal with the classic revolutionary situation: the West headed by the USA cannot assure its own dominance on a global scale, and the emerging new centers of power, in their turn, do not want to stay subordinate to the aggressive Western dictate. In all regions across the globe, from Africa to Latin America, geopolitical activity has grown substantially, we can observe the growing demand for independent policy and strengthening of regional and continental integration without participation of outside (non-regional) players.
However, the Anglo-Saxon elites are not ready to bear with such state of affairs and scramble to galvanize the unipolar world. Washington and London are putting the key stake on the purposeful destabilizing the situation in the key zones and creating the tactical coalitions around them controlled by Anglo-Saxons, the SVR Director informed. He emphasized that the British and the Americans were actively supported by France, for whom losing its influence in Africa was quite painful.
According to Naryshkin, behind the Western scenes they recognize any means to protect the democratic values, as the USA administration hypocritically calls it. The important element of implementing the «controlled chaos» strategy is manipulating the international terrorist groups, as well as radical religious and ultra-nationalistic organizations.
In the CIA and MI-6 they perfectly well understand the risks associated with dissemination of the ideas of international terrorism, radical Islam and xenophobia, the SVR Director added. However, in Langley and on the banks of the Thames they are based on the assumption that the USA and Great Britain have all the necessary instruments for non-linear control of crises, while as other players allegedly are deprived of such possibilities and often cannot even comprehend the current situation.
As soon as the signs of normalization appear in that or another problematic region, the Anglo-Saxons activate their contacts with local terrorists and extremists, and this trend is quite obvious, Naryshkin stated.
According to the SVR Director, Syria is a spectacular example of this. The Biden’s administration wants to disrupt the positive dynamics emerging around and inside this long-suffering nation, so Washington is increasing the support of the extremist Kurdish and Arab groups, which are loyal to the USA. They are working to destabilize the situation, including by using the ISIS capabilities. Jihadists are receiving information about the deployment sites and routes of relocation of the Syrian army and Russian military detachments, Naryshkin informed.
The US military base Et-Tanf on the border of Syria, Jordan and Iraq has been turned into a real «bandits’ brood». Recently, a British-American joint intelligence committee was established there, and in reality it is the management headquarters of ISIS activities in the South of Syria and in the region of Damascus.
Starting from not long ago, Africa has been in the special focus of the USA and their allies, Sergey Naryshkin said. According to him, the West is very concerned about the growing aspiration of the African countries to implement independent policy, to diversify external connections, to develop regional integration. The SVR of Russia has reliable information, that Western special services are already in contact with local terrorist groupings inspiring them to commit attacks and acts of sabotage against the infrastructure facilities in Mali and Central African Republic (CAR).
Active demolition work is in progress against the African countries, which are friendly to the Russian Federation. For example, on 20 March of this year, the attack on the gold-mining site close to the city of Chimbolo in CAR, which according to some data was committed by the armed group «Coalition of patriots for change», nine Chinese citizens were murdered there, but the West rushed to accuse Russia of it, the SVR Director highlighted. It was «strange enough», that this incident coincided with the visit of Xi Jinping, the President of the PRC, to Moscow, Naryshkin stated.
Counteracting the reckless schemes of the West
The USA and other G7 members, as well as the European Union are actively working against Russia – in particular, they are financing the ethnic separatist terrorist organizations entrenched in the West and openly calling to demolish the Russian statehood and violate the territorial integrity of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin said. He named some of such organizations as Forum of free peoples of post-Russia** and Liberated Nations League**.
Hiding behind the slogans of the so-called decolonization, these organizations demand splitting Russia into several dozens of quasi-states – and this is done even from the tribune of the European Parliament to the applause of Euro-Atlantic diplomatic and expert communities. But it is absolutely clear for any person of sound judgement that implementation of such chimeric aspirations would submerge Eurasia into the villainous ethnic and confessional conflict. However, the «grandmasters of geopolitics» in Washington and London understand this perfectly well, and this just proves one more time: they are simply possessed by the idea to set the entire European continent on fire, the SVR Director said.
Playing the cards of terrorism, extremism and ethnic separatism in such a shameless manner, the USA and their allies are staking everything including the future world order. But this is a bargain with the devil, Sergey Naryshkin warns. According to him, the example of Afghanistan has made it abundantly clear: the control over terrorist groupings cannot be absolute, eventually, they are raging out of control and start carrying threats for the countries, which used to arm them.
What is reassuring is that the West is no longer the main and the only player in the international relations. Other more responsible global and regional players are quite capable of joining their efforts in counteracting the American and British reckless schemes and of settling the problematic situations independently. Consolidation provides sustainability and strategic depth to such countries, which is needed in the conditions of the new redivision of the world and of the really complex transition to from the unipolar to the multipolar status.
* Al-Qaida, Islamic State – Khorasan Province, ISIS are terrorist organizations prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.
** Forum of free peoples of post-Russia and Liberated Nations League were qualified as undesirable organizations by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation.
