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To: richardred who wrote (943)	3/21/2008 11:39:15 PM
From: richardred	Respond to of 3363

Russia Says No Politics in Spy Case Friday March 21, 2:32 pm ET By Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer Russia Tries to Dampen Speculation of Political Motives in Industrial Espionage Arrests MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's Foreign Ministry on Friday tried to dampen speculation that the industrial espionage charges against two brothers with British connections were related to tensions between Moscow and London. The Federal Security Service announced Thursday that one of the brothers was an employee of TNK-BP, a major Russian oil company half owned by British Petroleum. It said the other was an employee of the British Council, although council officials said he was only a member of a club set up by the organization, which is Britain's overseas cultural arm. Ilya and Alexander Zaslavsky, who have dual Russian-U.S. citizenship, were arrested March 12 and released the same day on a pledge not to leave town. But the arrests and charges were not announced until Thursday, a day after police raids on TNK-BP and BP offices. The service, known by its Russian abbreviation FSB, said the brothers had been arrested while attempting to receive confidential information from an employee of a Russian oil or gas company, with the aim of giving foreign companies an advantage over Russian ones. Oil and gas have been crucial to reviving Russia's economy. But the brothers' British connections raised suggestions of political motives. The newspaper Gazeta headlined its front-page story on the arrests as "Spy Stone 2," a reference to the artificial rock which FSB alleged was used by British agents in 2006 to pass information and money to Russian non-governmental organizations aiming to undermine the Kremlin. Russian-British relations have worsened considerably since then and most recently forced the closure of all British Council offices except for the one in Moscow. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov was quoted by the state RIA-Novosti news agency as saying the arrests were unrelated to the British Council. "There's no sense in searching for links between events that are in no way connected to each other," he said. "It is not related to the current situation in Russian-British relations," the Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying. A prominent Russian legislator, Pavel Krasheninnikov, also dismissed such suggestions. "I believe this case does not have any political background. We should not look for political motives, we should look for proof of the people's guilt or innocence," he said, according to Interfax. But the line between politics and commerce in Russia is sketchy, especially in hydrocarbons. The country's largest oil producer, Rosneft, is state-controlled, as is natural gas monopoly Gazprom. Under President Vladimir Putin, the state has gained considerable control over so-called "champion industries" and that is expected to continue under President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, who is also chairman of Gazprom. TNK-BP came under massive official pressure last year, when government regulators said it was not meeting production targets at a giant Siberian gas field and threatened to withdraw its license. The Kremlin has increased pressure on foreign energy companies in recent years as part of its effort to consolidate control over the country's largest and most important hydrocarbon deposits. BP agreed in June to sell its stake at the Kovykta gas field to state gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, but talks on the price have continued. Some observers suggested that Wednesday's searches could be part of Gazprom's efforts to pressure the British oil company into lowering the price. It added that another state energy company, OAO Rosneft, could also be interested in buying some of TNK-BP assets. Searches and document confiscations accompanied a massive government crackdown on the Yukos oil company, which ended with an eight-year prison sentence for its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the transfer of its assets into state hands. biz.yahoo.com