CIA Staff Is Revealed To Be Working In Russian Government In 1990s, President Putin: I Cleaned Everything

Presiden Rusia Vladimir Putin. (Wikimedia Commons / Kremlin.ru / Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation)

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin described some of the methods foreign countries used to influence the Russian Federation in the mid-1990s. He underlined having foiled such acts in the early 2000s.

"For example, in the mid-1990s-early 2000s, in the early 2000s I cleaned everything up, but in the mid-1990s, we had employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as advisers and even official employees of the government of the Russian Federation, such as we will find out later," President Putin said at a meeting of the Council on Civil Society and Human Rights on Thursday, citing TASS December 10.

"Then, they were brought to the US to be held accountable, while being CIA employees and working in Russia, they violated US laws and took part in the privatization," he continued.

President Putin further explained that the disclosure was only one example of foreign interference in Russia's internal affairs. In reality, there are far more of them, Putin said.

That said, certain countries have some degree of control through channels like this.

"There are American specialists sitting on the site of our nuclear weapons complex, they work there, from early morning until late at night, they have a desk and an American flag. They live there and work there. They don't need good instruments to interfere in life. us, because they already have control over everything," Putin said.

Nevertheless, he underlined, the situation has changed, the country has become different, it has become more independent, more sovereign, the capabilities of its armed forces have grown and attitudes towards Russia have begun to change.

"As soon as Russia begins to claim its interests, it begins to improve its sovereignty, economy, and capabilities of its armed forces, new instruments to influence our internal political life become necessary, including sufficiently good instruments through various organizations, which are funded from abroad," President Putin said.

At the same time, President Putin again underlined, Russia is not against anyone.

"This is absolutely not true. Russia is in no way hostile to any part of the world. Certain parts of the world consider us their enemy," President Putin said.

"Did we declare someone as our enemy in any strategic document? No. We were declared (as the enemy)," he concluded.