Laas Leivat
The question remains unanswered: How did the Russian FSB team who abducted Eston Kohver, an Estonian intelligence officer, know where and when he would be at the Russian-Estonian border so that he could be nabbed? There could be a logical, simple explanation or an informant within the Estonian intelligence service itself.
Estonian officials have said that the abduction involved a smoke grenade and the jamming of any communications systems that Kohver might be using. Estonians insist that Kohver was grabbed from inside the European Union border. Furthermore Estonia has produced a statement signed both by Estonian as well as Russian border guard representatives that Kohver was on the Estonian side of the border as he was abducted by a Russian group in September. This has now been refuted by Russia.
Boris Volodarski, considered to be an expert on Russia intelligence, has recently indicated that Moscow may want to swap Kohver for a Russian spy jailed in Germany.
Volodarski, an advisor to Scotland Yard in the 2000s on the Alexandr Litvinenko case and also an author of a book and TV programs on Russian intelligence, says that the abduction of Kohver was spurred by the necessity to rid the individual who was investigating cross-border smuggling and the inevitable corruption associated with it. (Alexandr Litvinenko was a former FSB operative who was killed in London by polonium poisoning.) As Volodarski and many others have attested, activities handling contraband are only possible in Russia if provided with FSB protection. Thus Kohver’s probing into this illegal activity was a hindrance to the lucrative payoffs to someone in the FSB.
(Pikemalt saab lugeda Eesti Elu 19. detsembri paberlehest)
