FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ATTEMPTS TO SNATCH CONTROL OF VEKTOR'S RESEARCH CUT SHORT

NOVOSIBIRSK, December 22 (RIA Novosti's Maxim Koshmarchuk) - Officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) branch for the Novosibirsk region have ended attempts by a foreign intelligence service to seize control over research into especially dangerous pathogens at the Virology and Biotechnology Research State Center Vektor, located near Novosibirsk.

Head of the regional FSB Sergei Savchenkov said this on Wednesday at a press conference on results of the operations conducted last year.

According to him, the regional service has information that 24 people having to do with foreign intelligence services have been in the region since the start of 2004. They have been exposed, Sergei Savchenkov said.

Three people who local counterintelligence agents suspected of espionage have been expelled from the country and have their entry visas closed for five to ten years, Mr. Savchenkov said.

He cited among the main areas of interest for foreign secret services microbiology, gene engineering, nuclear physics and other research work, as well as political structure of state power in the region.