these border smuggling operations.’
‘Resnikov again,’ one of the terriers said triumphantly.
Logan looked at the young officer with a pitying contempt. ‘So you have a tongue that doesn’t just hang out,’ he replied, and received an evil look in return. Then he turned back to Pasconi.
‘We hope to have evidence from on the ground in the next two weeks,’ Logan continued. ‘In view of any terrorist implications, Cougar is requesting that the CIA offers its help. But with or without your help, we believe the Russians are preparing something from across their border with Ukraine.’ He leaned in now. ‘The background to this leads in one direction only, Miller believes. For years the Kremlin has been interfering with oil and gas supplies that have to come through Ukraine before they can get to Western Europe. Threatening Western European energy supplies, in other words. On top of that – and in another theatre of their Ukrainian operations entirely – there are tensions in the south, mainly in and around the Crimea. These tensions are deliberately being raised by Russian actions on the ground. The Russians’ provocation of the Ukrainian border police there, and even the Ukrainian military, is on the rise. Russian foreign intelligence teams have been on the increase in this southern sector too. While this is going on, up in the north-east of the country – in the Donetsk region – there are reports of weapons caches and planned artificial labour strikes. Some of these reports suggest that these preparations are being made in order to disguise an armed uprising against the government in Kiev. A labour strike followed by a “spontaneous” armed rebellion.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘It seems the Russians are throwing a bewildering number of different strategies at Ukraine in order to destabilise the country.’ Then he dropped his voice so that the two terriers in black suits had to lean closer from the end of the table to hear him. This was his coup de grâce, and it was the real reason Burt had called the meeting together this evening. This is what they really want to hear, was the way Burt had put it. Logan looked at MacLeod directly as he spoke. ‘But we believe the most alarming aspect of all of this Kremlin-inspired provocation is the ongoing information we’re receiving that suggests an al-Qaedabacked group in the Crimea is being armed by the Russian foreign intelligence service for an attack on the Crimean parliament.’
Logan sat back slightly in his chair and casually watched the reaction of the group that sat around him at the table. He could see immediately that he had hit his mark dead on. As Burt had anticipated, it was a bullseye.
It was undoubtedly known to the agency’s Kiev station that the Ukraine’s semi-autonomous territory of the Crimean peninsula, which jutted out into the Black Sea, was a region of seething discontent. In fact, that was common knowledge in the media, whenever editors applied their desiccated attention to the subject. As with most of the current problems in the former Soviet Union, the Crimea’s problems dated from Stalin’s time. Hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars had been deported in 1945. Then, since 1991, a quarter of a million of them had returned. The Tatars were Moslems, not extreme Moslems and not even all practising ones, that was true. But they were Moslems, nevertheless. The building of mosques and madrasahs on the peninsula had increased tenfold in the past few years. Burt had briefed him – though God knows on the basis of what information – that the region was ripe for trouble from various different quarters; Russians with their military and empire-building interests in the region; a restless, growing and politically marginalised Moslem population, and a general desire for Crimean self-rule, apart from Ukraine, among its pro-Russian population.
At some point in the pause that followed Logan’s final remarks, MacLeod finally
‘Resnikov again,’ one of the terriers said triumphantly.
Logan looked at the young officer with a pitying contempt. ‘So you have a tongue that doesn’t just hang out,’ he replied, and received an evil look in return. Then he turned back to Pasconi.
‘We hope to have evidence from on the ground in the next two weeks,’ Logan continued. ‘In view of any terrorist implications, Cougar is requesting that the CIA offers its help. But with or without your help, we believe the Russians are preparing something from across their border with Ukraine.’ He leaned in now. ‘The background to this leads in one direction only, Miller believes. For years the Kremlin has been interfering with oil and gas supplies that have to come through Ukraine before they can get to Western Europe. Threatening Western European energy supplies, in other words. On top of that – and in another theatre of their Ukrainian operations entirely – there are tensions in the south, mainly in and around the Crimea. These tensions are deliberately being raised by Russian actions on the ground. The Russians’ provocation of the Ukrainian border police there, and even the Ukrainian military, is on the rise. Russian foreign intelligence teams have been on the increase in this southern sector too. While this is going on, up in the north-east of the country – in the Donetsk region – there are reports of weapons caches and planned artificial labour strikes. Some of these reports suggest that these preparations are being made in order to disguise an armed uprising against the government in Kiev. A labour strike followed by a “spontaneous” armed rebellion.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘It seems the Russians are throwing a bewildering number of different strategies at Ukraine in order to destabilise the country.’ Then he dropped his voice so that the two terriers in black suits had to lean closer from the end of the table to hear him. This was his coup de grâce, and it was the real reason Burt had called the meeting together this evening. This is what they really want to hear, was the way Burt had put it. Logan looked at MacLeod directly as he spoke. ‘But we believe the most alarming aspect of all of this Kremlin-inspired provocation is the ongoing information we’re receiving that suggests an al-Qaedabacked group in the Crimea is being armed by the Russian foreign intelligence service for an attack on the Crimean parliament.’
Logan sat back slightly in his chair and casually watched the reaction of the group that sat around him at the table. He could see immediately that he had hit his mark dead on. As Burt had anticipated, it was a bullseye.
It was undoubtedly known to the agency’s Kiev station that the Ukraine’s semi-autonomous territory of the Crimean peninsula, which jutted out into the Black Sea, was a region of seething discontent. In fact, that was common knowledge in the media, whenever editors applied their desiccated attention to the subject. As with most of the current problems in the former Soviet Union, the Crimea’s problems dated from Stalin’s time. Hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars had been deported in 1945. Then, since 1991, a quarter of a million of them had returned. The Tatars were Moslems, not extreme Moslems and not even all practising ones, that was true. But they were Moslems, nevertheless. The building of mosques and madrasahs on the peninsula had increased tenfold in the past few years. Burt had briefed him – though God knows on the basis of what information – that the region was ripe for trouble from various different quarters; Russians with their military and empire-building interests in the region; a restless, growing and politically marginalised Moslem population, and a general desire for Crimean self-rule, apart from Ukraine, among its pro-Russian population.
At some point in the pause that followed Logan’s final remarks, MacLeod finally
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