And they are frightening the venture capital community!
"Lucia Ziobro, assistant special agent at the FBI’s Boston’s office, said Monday that the FBI does not have any evidence, but Ziobro said the warning had been in the works since early February, before the situation began in Crimea. “Rather than waiting for a crime to occur, we’re putting the alert out in case something comes up from Russia,” she said. The FBI has also contacted local companies and universities directly and warned them to be wary of any approaches by those foreign investors."
Just another stupid spy story coming from my Boston Globe as being told by FBI liars.
So who are your instigating informants setting up as we speak?
"FBI says Russians out to steal technology from Boston firms, but evidence is thin" by Kyle Alspach
I'm sorry, what was that second part!??!
It sounds like a scare from 1970s Cold War propaganda or a subplot from the popular TV series “The Americans,” but the FBI says the threat is real: Russian investment firms may be looking to steal high-tech intelligence from Boston-area companies to give to their country’s military.
Oh, this IS BAD PROPAGANDA that DOES READ like a TV SERIES -- the ABOVE-the-FOLD LEAD, no less!!
In an extraordinary warning issued to technology companies in Massachusetts, the FBI’s Boston office said entrepreneurs could unwittingly be drawn into industrial espionage if they work with Russian-backed venture capital firms operating here and in Silicon Valley.
I hope ALL THAT MUCH-NEEDED INVESTMENT MONEY DRIES the F*** UP!
I mean, it ALREADY IS because of the NSA TRAPDOOR and BACKDOOR SPYING written into U.S. software and programs, and I'm sure AmeriKan banksters will pick up the slack by raiding your pensions and college endowments, but who cares?
The government will then be able to blame the collapse this pyramid economic scheme designed by banks on the commie Russians!!
The bureau said it has sent notices to local companies and research facilities such as universities, and on Friday published a Boston Business Journal op-ed by an agent in the FBI’s Boston office.
It really is a government mouthpiece, folks! Literally!
The FBI singled out the Skolkovo Foundation, founded by Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, that in 2011 enlisted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start an elite technical college in Russia modeled after the Cambridge school.
“The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application,” Lucia Ziobro, assistant special agent at the FBI’s Boston’s office, wrote in the op-ed piece.
Skolkovo officials could not be reached for comment. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Ziobro said Monday that the FBI does not have any evidence that this has occurred.
Whatssat?
Instead, the warning grew out of a proliferation of intellectual property theft from US companies by Chinese firms over the past decade.
And what does that have to do with Russia?
Look, I really don't want to push them together because that is the end of us in a war, and then the U.S. goes nuclear because other than Gorbachev letting go, all empires have had to be violently forced to give up power. Think of it. All of them.
Like China, Russia has lax intellectual property protections, Ziobro said, and a documented history of corruption that could lead to similar thefts of American technology.
Takes one to now one, FBI puke.
Though the FBI did not single out Russian venture capital firms by name, two of the best-known in the technology community are RVC, which has a US office in Boston, and RUSNANO USA, which is based in Silicon Valley and has invested in several Massachusetts companies.
The head of RUSNANO USA said he was dumbfounded by the FBI’s warning.
“I actually thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” said Dmitry Akhanov, RUSNANO USA chief executive. “I had to check the date.”
RUSNANO has invested $1.2 billion in American companies over the past four years. Akhanov said he does not know of any cases of intellectual property theft involving any of those firms, adding, “no one has ever suspected us of any wrongdoing.”
And, “No, I’m not a spy,” he added.
Just having to say that means he is suspicious, right? Now let me go look under the bed!
That response was echoed by RVC, whose US operation has been active on the Boston startup scene, providing funds to the MassChallenge program in previous years.
That's what Russian spies do!
The group’s chief executive, Axel Tillman, said that the FBI warning is so vague that it could spark fears in the startup and investment community about working with anyone from Russia.
I think we JU$T FOUND the POINT of this FBI FRAUD!
“Making a blanket statement without any details is not a positive thing,” Tillman said.
The FBI warning comes as the Obama administration has increased pressure on Russia for its annexation of the former Ukrainian territory of Crimea by levying sanctions on some business leaders close to President Vladimir Putin.
But that has nothing to do with this.
In March, the US Commerce Department banned new licenses for the export to Russia of defense-related products and “dual-use” technologies that could have military applications.
But Ziobro said the warning had been in the works since early February, before the situation began in Crimea.
“Rather than waiting for a crime to occur, we’re putting the alert out in case something comes up from Russia,” she said.
Many of Russia’s overseas technology initiatives are active in Boston.
For example, in September the Skolkovo Foundation, RVC, and RUSNANO organized conferences in Boston and Silicon Valley, called Russian Innovation Week, which sought to promote business relations between the two countries.
The conference included participation by a number of high-powered individuals from government and business, including Michael McFaul, who was US ambassador to Russia at the time of the event, and a former US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle.\
Related: Final Call For McFaul
Maybe he's a Russian spy!
RUSNANO’s local investments include $35 million in Joule Unlimited of Bedford, which is developing renewable fuels, and $25 million in BIND Therapeutics, a biotech company in Cambridge cofounded by famed MIT scientist Robert Langer.
And the military connections.... ??????
Prominent Boston-area venture capital firms invested alongside RUSNANO in those companies.
A partner in RUSNANO’s Menlo Park, Calif., office sits on the board of BIND Therapuetics, and a second firm spun out of Langer’s lab, Selecta Biosciences Inc. of Watertown.
Officials at BIND, Selecta, and Joule declined to comment Monday.
Contacted Monday, Langer said he could see no reason to suspect Russian venture firms.
“I’ve seen no evidence of this,” said Langer, who has won numerous awards for his scientific breakthroughs and was honored with a medal by President Obama last year. “In fact, they’ve been good investors and board members,” he added.
Ziobro, however, said the Skolkovo Foundation has a checkered history that warrants suspicion.
Last year, Russian authorities brought several corruption cases against Skolkovo officials, according to news accounts.
Why did Wall Street banks just pop into my mind?
Moreover, the FBI raised alarms about a research and development deal the foundation signed last year with Russian defense contractor Ojsc Kamaz, which provides the country’s military with armed and armored vehicles.
“The FBI fears that Kamaz will provide Russia’s military with innovative research obtained from the Foundation’s US partners,” Ziobro wrote in the op-ed.
The FBI has also contacted local companies and universities directly and warned them to be wary of any approaches by those foreign investors.
“The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by their government, is to gain access to classified, sensitive, and emerging technology from the companies,” she wrote.
You mean, like all the CIA AID programs and other good-will AmeriKan organizations that populate the planet?
The Russian foundation has collaborated with MIT to create the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech, which is in a suburb of Moscow.
MIT has been responsible for helping to develop the education, research, and entrepreneurship programs at Skoltech, and the university accepted its first students in fall 2012.
MIT declined to address the FBI’s concerns.
Then MIT must be RIDDLED with SPIES!
Instead, Bruce Tidor, an MIT professor involved in the Skoltech project, said in a statement that the school’s collaboration in Russia is intended to stimulate entrepreneurship in that country.
“Programs such as Skoltech are intended to build intellectual relationships in a transparent environment, centering on open, fundamental, publishable research,” Tidor said. “In this, as in all our international collaborations, MIT is very careful to comply with all US export control regulations.”
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Speaking of playing games:
"Protesters seek independence from Ukraine, aid from Putin; US warns Russia about steep costs of interference" by David M. Herszenhorn and Andrew Roth | New York Times April 08, 2014
MOSCOW — Several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, declared Monday they were forming an independent republic and urged President Vladimir Putin to send troops to the region as a peacekeeping force, even though there are no obvious threats to peace in the area.
Oddly, I trust Putin to choose the wisest course; I wish I could say that about my pathetic pos president.
The actions in Donetsk and three other cities in eastern Ukraine, which included a demand for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia, seemed an effort by the activists to mimic some of the events that preceded Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But there were no immediate indications that the Kremlin was receptive to the pleas.
But, still, nonetheless, however, if.... all BAD WORDS for a REPORT -- or so I was told in college -- and YET I find frequently find them in my "newspaper." Must be the $tyle of the author they once told me about big shot writers that break all the rules.
While widely regarded as political theater under the Kremlin’s direction, the protests could help promote what analysts say is Moscow’s primary interest of destabilizing the shaky government in Kiev and preventing it from drifting into the West’s orbit or signing any agreements with Western organizations, including NATO.
The Jew York Times spin is dizzying!
General rule of thumb when reading them: the opposite is true!
The protesters may be trying to provoke a violent response from Kiev, analysts say, hoping to provide the pretext for a Crimean-like military incursion in a country Moscow considers an integral part of historical Russia.
Oh, this is such wonderful war propaganda!
I love my agenda-pushing, war-promoting piece-of-$hit pre$$!
In recognition of the potential dangers, Secretary of State John F. Kerry told the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in a phone call Monday there would be “further costs” if Russia took additional steps to destabilize Ukraine, the State Department said.
Related: A Conversation With John Kerry
I'm told talks are still going on, but I have kind of stopped listening. You better withdraw!
Kerry said in the call that the United States was monitoring with growing concern the pro-Russia protests in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Mariupol, and did not believe they were a “spontaneous set of events,” said Jen Psaki, State Department spokeswoman.
“He noted in particular the recent arrests of Russian intelligence operatives working in Ukraine,” Psaki added.
The Obama administration has warned Russia it is prepared to impose more sanctions if Russia intervenes militarily or covertly to undermine the new Ukrainian government, a point Kerry repeated Monday.
Yeah, only we are allowed to do that, and the FBI all of sudden warns about Russian investors!
“He made clear that any further Russian effort to destabilize Ukraine will incur further costs for Russia,” Psaki said, without providing details.
That's what you do when you LIE!
Officials from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union are planning to meet in the next 10 days to discuss the situation, Psaki said.
NATO’s top commander, General Philip M. Breedlove, said last week the approximately 40,000 Russian troops near the Ukrainian border are capable of intervening in eastern Ukraine on 12 hours’ notice and could accomplish their military objectives in three to five days.
I haven't forgotten.
In Kiev on Monday morning, the acting prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, said, “There is a script being written in the Russian Federation, for which there is only one purpose: the dismemberment and destruction of Ukraine and the transformation of Ukraine into the territory of slavery under the dictates of Russia.”
Oh, there sure is!
Russian officials, including Lavrov, have said that they have no intention of taking military action in eastern Ukraine, a region with a population of millions.
The U.S. government and it's mouthpiece media will politely ignore that.
In a statement Monday afternoon, the Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated its call for federalizing Ukraine, a move that would substantially weaken the government in Kiev.
“As the Russian side has noted repeatedly, it is difficult to count on a long-term stabilization of Ukraine without a real constitutional reform within the framework of which, through federalization, the interests of all regions would be ensured, its nonaligned status maintained, and the special role of the Russian language reinforced,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry denied any role in the unrest, even though the demonstrations Sunday evening in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk seemed coordinated and bore the hallmarks of similar protests last month that were organized with support from Moscow.
And the CIA-EU-US-supported thugs that seized power in Kiev?
Even as the Kremlin denied any role, government-controlled television stations in Russia gave live coverage to the events in Donetsk on Monday, including the reading of a sort of declaration of independence of the “sovereign state of the Donetsk People’s Republic” by a pro-Russian demonstrator inside the regional administration building. Protesters occupied the building Sunday.
We call it cable and network news over here.
While the demonstrators in Donetsk announced that a ballot referendum on secession from Ukraine would be held no later than May 11, there did not appear to be the same overwhelming support for such a move as there was in Crimea last month.
Meaning they the agenda-pusher I'm reading is afraid of the vote, going to rig it, or will ignore and disparage it.
The regional prosecutor, Mykola Frantovkskiy, issued a statement calling the demonstrators’ actions illegal and saying that law officials had identified the criminal “separatists” and that “all necessary measures will be taken to apprehend the violators.”
The Donetsk City Council called on the protesters to end their occupation of government buildings and engage in negotiations.
Ucky Occupiers, as opposed to others approved by the agenda-pushers!
The events in the east unfolded hours after a Ukrainian military officer was shot and killed in Crimea in a confrontation with Russian troops.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Vladislav Seleznev, said the officer, Major Stanislav Karchevskiy, was killed in a military dormitory where he lived with his wife and two children, next to the Novofedorivka air base.
The death of the Ukrainian officer was a rare instance of lethal violence as Ukrainian forces continue their withdrawal from the peninsula after its annexation by Russia.
I've seen that word more in a month regarding Russia than all the decades I've been reading the Globe regarding Israel.
Seleznev said the soldier had been collecting his belongings in preparation to leave Crimea when an argument broke out with Russian service members, Reuters reported.
And they shot him like an AmeriKan policeman or security agent from the FBI (think Todashev) would?
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Looks like the NYT likes Old Russia, 'eh?
Also see: China Helped Iran Get Nuclear Bomb
Yeah, whatever.
