Putin to revive the KGB

The coming dark age: One day after Putin’s party won an easy election victory it has announced that they plan on reviving the secret security force known previously as the KGB.

“The KGB was one of the strongest special services in the world – everyone recognised this,” Sergei Goncharov, who served in Russia’s now disbanded Alpha counter-terror unit in the 1990s, told state media. Mr Goncharov also said the creation of the MGB would provide Russia with a “strong fist” overseen by a unified leadership.

Kremlin critics were horrified by the possible rebirth of an organisation synonymous in Russia with political oppression. “It’s time to get out [of the country],” wrote Elshad Babaev, a Twitter user. “Anyone who can should take the opportunity.”

Unlike the 20th century, however, the west can no longer be called “the free world”, as it was then. Instead, we are lumbering toward the same evils, and thus do not necessarily provide a safe haven for real political refugees that we were then. Instead, our bankrupt intellectual leadership has been rushing to bring in fifth columnists from the Middle East while leaving the real refugees there to suffer persecution by Islamic radicals.

Soviet spacecraft kidnapped by CIA

Stranger than fiction: In 1967 the CIA kidnapped a Soviet spacecraft for 24 hours during a global international exhibition tour.

Because the Lunik was guarded 24/7 by Soviets during the second exhibition, the intelligence agents had to wait until the show was over and the Lunik crated for shipment. Then the CIA agents “arranged to make the Lunik the last truckload of the day to leave the grounds,” Finer says. When the Americans made sure no Soviets were on the road watching the truck with the precious cargo as it made its way to the railroad station, “the truck was stopped at the last possible turn-off, a canvas was thrown over the crate and a new driver took over,” Finer says. “The original driver was escorted to a hotel room and kept there for the night.” In a salvage yard, the American experts poked, prodded and photographed the Lunik. Meanwhile, at the railroad yard where the shipment was expected, the Americans got lucky. The Russian waiting to check in the truckloads evidently grew tired, bored, hungry or all three: He left his post to eat dinner and then headed to his hotel to sleep. By 7 a.m., the Russian was back at his post at the rail yard, none the wiser. There he “found the truck with the Lunik awaiting him.”