Dissident Expat Warns Bulgaria about Russian Domination - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency

Dissident Expat Warns Bulgaria about Russian Domination - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency              The Russian dissident Vladimir Malsagov said Bulgaria should be
extremely careful in dealing with Russia and its leader Valdimir Putin.



Malsagov presented Friday in Sofia his book "The FSB Mafia", in which he
discusses the continuity between the former KGB and Russia's present
security service FSB.



In his words, Putin's regime could "buy" a few oligarchs in Bulgaria,
and do whatever it wanted in the country, especially by using Russia's
oil and natural gas.



According to Malsagov, Russia's Ambassador to Sofia Yuriy Isakov had
been involved with the energy security department of the FSB, and was
now acting to secure the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline
and of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, which would make
Bulgaria totally dependent on Russia.



Malsagov's scenario includes the "buying" of key leaders from the
Bulgarian political establishment with money from Gazprom and Rosneft,
and using them as a stable lobby for Russian interests in the Balkans
and in the EU.



He believes the Russian energy projects would have only a marginal
positive effect on Bulgaria's economy, while binding the country to
Putin's regime in Russia.



In his book, Malsagov also claims the Russian FSB had been connected to
the greatest terrorist plots in the recent years, including the 9/11
attacks against the World Trade Center in New York, and that FSB was to
blame for the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.



He says the Russian security and political establishment had been using
the international terrorism scare to advance its own interests.



Malsagov's visit to Bulgaria is organized with the help of the Bulgarian NGO "Association for Free Speech "Anna Politkovskaya".



Malsagov is of Chechen origin, and has spent ten years in jail as a
political prisoner in the former USSR. He currently lives in France.



For the presentation of his book, Malsagov was joined by another Russian
expat, Larisa Volodimirova, who is a human rights advocate currently
living in the Netherlands.



According to Volodimirova, there were still thousands of political
prisoners in Russia, who were kept under extremely bad conditions.