Russia's Spies Say Cooperating With British on Olympics

Russian security services said Friday that they are working with their British counterparts in the run-up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Intelligence cooperation between the two countries was halted following the fatal poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006, an incident that badly damaged diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Russia will today conduct the fourth in a series of meetings with spy agencies from 30 different nations dedicated to security during the Winter Games, a Federal Security Service (FSB) spokesman said.

The FSB confirmation came after John Sawers, the head of British foreign intelligence, told a British parliamentary hearing Thursday that his agency had recently begun talking with Russia about security in Sochi.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minster David Cameron said following a meeting in Sochi in May that they had agreed that their security services would cooperate over the Olympics.

There are concerns over the safety of the Sochi Games, which will take place near Russia’s North Caucasus region that is plagued by violence in part generated from a continuing Islamist insurgency.

Full security measures in Sochi will be put in place January 7, the FSB said Friday. The Games are due to run from February 7 through February 23.

Published by exclusive arrangement with Around the Rings’ Sochi 2014 media partner RIA-Novosti.

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