During his interview with Soldatov, Novikov shared his email account password with the author, allowing him to read all the messages to and from Alexei Lvovich. Their exchange began in July 2007 and continued until February 2008. Novikov had sent along all the information he had garnered about events in the Kasparov movement. In some messages the handler said he had money to give to Novikov. For example, on February 4, 2008, the FSB man wrote: “Alexander Alexeievich! You disappeared again. What’s happened? Call me urgently. Alexei Lvovich.”
Novikov suggested that he had personally played an important role in helping the FSB disrupt Kasparov’s political activities. Specifically, he said, he had provided information to the FSB about where Kasparov planned to hold meetings to obtain signatures to become a candidate in the 2008 presidential election. On December 10, 2007, the Kasparov initiative group was blocked without explanation from renting a theater hall in Moscow. When Kasparov’s supporters tried to find another location, the proprietors of venues large enough for his purposes all flatly refused. Kasparov needed to gather five hundred people, but it became difficult without a hall, and the Central Election Commission forbade dividing the group into parts. According to Novikov, he provided the FSB the information about each venue that Kasparov wanted to rent.
For its part, the FSB seemed intent upon infiltrating Kasparov’s movement, but not necessarily in controlling it. Outright control lay in the hands of the Kremlin, which devoted great efforts to suppressing opposition to Putin and to creating friendly youth political movements.
As Novikov described it, his FSB handlers were mostly interested in seeing his role expand within Kasparov’s movement. They always gave him instructions about whom to communicate with and how to behave in order to assure promotion. In January 2008, Novikov reported good news: Lolita Tsaria, the head of the Moscow branch of the UCF, promised him the leadership of the Moscow northwest branch of the movement. Two days later Novikov left Russia.
Soldatov was puzzled. He could not figure out why Novikov decided, as he put it, to “quit the life of the informant and expose everything.” Novikov claimed he was tired of living a double life and double-crossing his comrades in the movement.
But Soldatov wondered if the claims were true, and if Novikov were in fact posing as an informer in order to qualify for asylum and secure a good life for himself in Europe. In July 2007, Novikov arrived for the first time in Denmark, where he stayed in a refugee camp, but in August he returned to Moscow.
IN SOVIET TIMES, political investigations were carried out by the famous Fifth Directorate of the KGB, created in 1967 under KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov. Andropov’s note to the Central Committee of the Communist Party on April 17, 1968, read: “Unlike previous sub-units we have had in the state security organizations, which dealt with questions of combatting harmful elements in the ideological area who were mainly inside the country, the newly created fifth sub-units have been called upon to combat ideological subversion inspired by our enemies abroad.”
2
The Fifth Directorate comprised fifteen separate departments working to quash dissent. The First department was in charge of work through trade unions, the Second planned operations against émigré organizations that were critical of the Soviet Union, the Third worked among students, and so on. Among the departments was one charged with handling foreign journalists (the Fourteenth), one that dealt with punks and unofficial groups (the Thirteenth), and one that served as a liaison with the Jewish community (the Eighth). No fewer than 2,500 employees served in the Fifth Directorate, as Fillip Bobkov, longtime chief of the Directorate, later recalled.
3
In the middle of Gorbachev’s perestroika era, in an effort to improve their image, the Fifth Directorate was renamed the “Directorate to Defend the Soviet Constitutional System” (Directorate Z). However, it did not survive the fall of the Soviet Union and was eliminated in September 1991. Even so, experienced officers remained on active service.
In Yeltsin’s time, the FSB resurrected the unit. The FSB’s Directorate to Protect the Constitution was created on July 6, 1998, the same month that Putin was named FSB director. In an interview with
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
in November of that year, its chief, Gennady Zotov, described his Directorate’s role: “The state pursued the goal of creating a sub-unit ‘specialized’ in fighting threats to the security of the Russian Federation in the sociopolitical sphere. Due to a number of objective factors connected with Russia’s fundamental nature, it has always devoted special attention to the protection of the country from ‘internal sedition,’ for ‘internal sedition’ has always been more terrible for Russia than any military invasion.”
4
To date, this is the most honest and open comment made by any FSB general on the need for political investigation.
But not all political surveillance was conducted by the central authorities. Regional offices and units also played a role. In the FSB, one of the largest of these regional departments was in Moscow.
5
Under Russian law, the special services are not supposed to engage in direct investigations using covert agents implanted in political organizations. That would be illegal under the Act on Operational-Investigative Activity passed in 1995, in which Article 5, Item 2 explicitly states:
The bodies (officials) carrying out operative-investigative activity are forbidden: . . . to take secret part . . . in the activity of properly registered and non-banned political parties, public and religious movements, with the purpose of influencing the character of their activities.
TO SOLDATOV, SEVERAL details in Novikov’s story seemed strange, such as the contract that he signed, instead of a signed statement of collaboration, which was typical for the KGB. But Soldatov thought perhaps this was just one more of the many indicators of the new economic regime in Russia. But other details rang true. According to former FSB officers interviewed by Soldatov, the behavior described is typical of the employees of the Moscow department of the FSB. By contrast to the officers of the Central Apparatus, they do prefer to hold meetings near their headquarters, and they require written accounts and receipts as proof to their leadership that they have not pocketed the money given.
The most convincing detail in Novikov’s claims was his description of the building where his initial meeting took place. Novikov told Soldatov the address was Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, 13/15. The public doesn’t know much about this place except that the building belongs to the Moscow Department of the FSB. Inside, there is a little-known unit responsible for fighting political extremism.
Soldatov and his Danish journalist colleagues spent countless hours in discussion in Copenhagen about how to check the facts surrounding Novikov’s story. Eventually they asked Novikov to call his handler and to record their conversation. Novikov was brought to the beautiful riverbank in the center of Copenhagen on a cold winter day. A TV crew was ready to record the conversation. No other people were in sight.
Novikov dialed the mobile number of his handler:
“Alexei Lvovich?”
“Yes,” the voice on the other end of the line confirmed.
Novikov explained to his handler that he was in Denmark.
“Well, you should have informed me. Why didn’t you tell me at once?” Alexei Lvovich demanded. Novikov changed the subject, telling his handler that he had called Lolita Tsaria, chief of the Moscow section of the Kasparov movement.
“I called Lolita,” he said, nervously.“She has chosen the coordinators of the groups, and now there are commissions to be formed. It is likely that I will be included in one of them, the commission on organized mass events.”
“I got it. Okay. But will you be here in a week?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Otherwise your money will get lost again,” laughed Alexei Lvovich.
“Money will get lost?” Novikov asked.
“Yes. I asked you the question how you disappeared so suddenly.”
“Well, it just happened like that.”
“But you will be here in a week, won’t you?”
“I hope I will,” Novikov assured him.
“Well give me a call sometimes. Do you have Internet access there?”
“Yes, I read all your emails,” Novikov said.
“I see. And does anything come to your email box? Anything from Lolita?”
“Lolita? Yes, it sure does.”
“Send me what you have when the opportunity presents itself,” said the handler. He then asked, “And who has become the coordinator now?”
“Coordinator? It seems to be Nemov. I’ve never heard the name before.”
“I got it. OK, you’ll send me those last letters, won’t you?” It sounded more like an order than a question.
“OK, I will. Thank you and good-bye, Alexei Lvovich.”
“Take care!”Alexei Lvovich hung up.
In Copenhagen, Soldatov wrote up an account of Novikov’s story and sent it to Borogan in Moscow. The Danish wanted to air the story on television as soon as possible. Soldatov wanted to check more details.
Borogan took the story to the editor of
Novaya Gazeta
, who suggested she go to the FSB for comment. She faxed a formal request for comment on two points: whether the FSB sent agents to infiltrate political parties, and whether they had infiltrated Kasparov’s movement. Borogan did not mention Novikov’s name, fearing that to do so would trigger an effort by the FSB to stop publication. As it turned out, the FSB didn’t respond to the request.
Even before Soldatov flew back to Moscow, he was making frantic efforts to check the story. He asked a colleague at
Novaya Gazeta
, who had once served in the KGB’s Fifth Directorate, to listen to the details and give him his opinion on whether the story might be true. After listening, Soldatov’s colleague concluded that it sounded a lot like the Moscow department of the FSB, given the locations of the meetings and the details about the building. The colleague also said that the meeting with Alexei Lvovich’s supervisor was typical of this department—it was the leadership’s way of checking in on their officers, to ensure that recruited agents are real, and worth the money they are allotted. It was common that an informant would know very little about his handler, so it would not help to pressure Novikov for more details on that score.
Soldatov and Borogan debated whether to call Kasparov for comment. They decided against it—they had no reaction from the FSB, and they didn’t want it to look as if the story had been inspired by Kasparov’s movement.
After much debate, the authors published the Novikov story on February 21, 2008, on the front page of
Novaya Gazeta
, the same day Danish journalists aired their program about the case.
6
The news was met with a huge public outcry from opposition circles. Roman Dobrokhotov, the leader of an opposition group called the “We” movement, told news agencies that Novikov had been everywhere—he could not remember any political action that Novikov had not taken part in. He added that it seemed strange that an FSB agent would “shine” so much on the events. Still, Dobrokhotov said he suspected that the FSB had infiltrated the political movements, and he was convinced that there were other undercover intelligence officers among Russia’s opposition groups.
The Kasparov movement, meanwhile, seemed unruffled by the story. Spokesperson Marina Litvinovich told Soldatov, “Well, that’s good you wrote about it, and so?” On the day the story was published, Denis Bilunov, a deputy of Kasparov’s, noted,“I never had a doubt that there were people inside our organization and other opposition groups who agreed to inform the secret services about our activity.” He added, “Now, it has come to light.” He also said the affair was cause for a lawsuit, but added, “I think that this has to be a matter for the prosecutor’s office, because it is largely not about the violation of our rights, but about breaking the law by the secret services.”
Other media—including the
Moscow Times
,
Le Figaro
, and the BBC—took up Novikov’s story. But the FSB refused to comment on the case. The head of the press office of the Moscow department, Yevgeny Kalinovich, was on sick leave beginning the day of publication and other employees refused to comment. The authors got no answer to their written inquiry. But the case was still uncertain. Even after the story was published, Soldatov was accused by colleagues at
Novaya Gazeta
of publishing unchecked information.