Moscow Accuses U.S. Diplomat of Spying

Russian security officials said Tuesday that they had caught a U.S. diplomat red-handed trying to obtain military secrets, hours after the Pentagon announced charges against an American accused of passing secrets to Russia.

The FSB, Russia’s internal security service, released a black-and-white photograph of Cheri Leberknight, a second secretary at the U.S. Embassy here, and showed pictures of the high-tech espionage gadgets she allegedly had with her when she was caught Monday night.

FSB spokesman Alexander A. Zdanovich said Leberknight was carrying a map of the meeting site, equipment to record a conversation and tools for cryptographic writing. He warned that would-be spies are making a grave mistake if they think the FSB isn’t as sharp as its Soviet-era predecessor, the KGB.

But he denied that the incident was a tit-for-tat move in reprisal for Monday’s announcement in Washington that a U.S. Navy petty officer, Daniel King, had been charged with handing classified material to Russia in 1994.

“I think that concept comes from the lexicon of the Cold War period, when the tit-for-tat principle was in effect,” Zdanovich said, denying any link. He described Leberknight’s interception as a routine operation.

“It is senseless to deny anything. The FSB has absolute evidence of the spying,” he said. “The detention of a diplomat or a person working under diplomatic cover is a very serious step, and we have verified everything before taking it.”

A U.S. Embassy official declined to comment on the matter, as did the CIA. “We don’t talk about intelligence activities as a rule, and we’re not going to talk about this one,” CIA spokesman Bill Harwell said in Washington.

Spying scandals and tit-for-tat expulsions were frequent during the Cold War and have not been uncommon since then.

The incident comes as ties between Russia and the U.S. are under strain. The relationship has reached its lowest point since the end of the Cold War, with Russia angry over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s bombing of Yugoslavia last spring and over the recent Western pressure to end Moscow’s war against separatist Chechnya.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Tuesday that there was comprehensive evidence proving Leberknight’s activities were incompatible with her diplomatic status--the usual euphemism for spying.

He said the matter wouldn’t help U.S.-Russian relations but added that he hopes it won’t exacerbate the situation.

“We hope and expect that this should not interfere with relations between the United States and Russia,” he said, “but certainly, such episodes do not help improve the climate and atmosphere.”

He said he hopes that Leberknight will leave Russia soon.

Leberknight was questioned by the FSB in the presence of a U.S. consular official after she was detained Monday night. The Russian side read a protest to the American official before releasing Leberknight.

FSB officials quoted by the Interfax news agency claimed that Leberknight was collecting information about Russia’s nuclear capability.

The incident came on the same day U.S. officials announced that Petty Officer 1st Class King, 40, had been charged with spying. The alleged offense took place in 1994, when he worked in the Navy’s espionage decoding unit.

King was charged Nov. 5 and will be tried in a military court.

The last time Russian officials expelled an American accused of spying was in June, when a U.S. Army attache at the embassy, Lt. Col. Peter Hoffman, was declared persona non grata and ordered to leave.

Hoffman’s expulsion came after the U.S. expelled a Russian allegedly working as an undercover agent at the United Nations in New York.

The biggest tit-for-tat spy scandal in recent years was in May 1996, when Britain expelled four diplomats in retaliation for Russia’s expulsion of four British diplomats accused of spying.