Involvement in Russian Foreign Policy
During Yeltsin presidency, SVR fought with Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for directing Russian foreign policy. SVR director Yevgeni Primakov upstaged the foreign ministry by publishing warnings to the West not to interfere the unification of Russia with other former Soviet republics and attacking the NATO extension as a threat to Russian security, whereas foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev was telling different things. The rivalry ended in decisive victory for the SVR, when Primakov replaced Kozyrev in January 1996 and brought with him a number of SVR officers to the foreign ministry of Russia.
In September 1999, Yeltsin admitted that the SVR plays a greater role in the Russian foreign policy than the Foreign Ministry. It was reported that SVR defined Russian position on the transfer of nuclear technologies to Iran, NATO expansion, and modification of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. SVR also tried to justify annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union in World War II using selectively declassified documents.
SVR sends to the Russian president daily digests of intelligence, similar to the President's Daily Brief produced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the US. However, unlike the CIA, the SVR recommends to the president which policy options are preferable.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)
Famous quotes containing the words foreign policy, involvement in, involvement, russian, foreign and/or policy:
“Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“Whatever qualities [Tsar Nicholas I] may have shown in his own kingly profession, it must be admitted that in his dealings with the Russian Muse he was at the worst a vicious bully, at the best a clown.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never—never—never!”
—William Pitt, The Elder, Lord Chatham (1708–1778)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)