Vladimir Petrovich Alganov (Russian: Владимир Петрович Алганов; born 22 October 1952 in Leningrad) is a Russian spy. He was Soviet KGB officer in Warsaw, Poland in the 1980s and Russian SVR officer in the same city in the 1990s.
In 1996, Poland's Prime Minister Józef Oleksy resigned because of his links to Alganov.[1]
Alganov was deported from Poland in 1997.[2]
In 2005 Lithuanian authorities said that Alganov had been issued a long-term Lithuanian visa in 2002 and Alganov had met managers of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.[3][4]
In 2003, Alganov secretly met Jan Kulczyk in a restaurant in Vienna, Austria. The conversation was recorded by Polish intelligence officers. According to Antoni Macierewicz, a member of the investigative board:
- Alganov offered Kulczyk $5 million to influence Poland's then-President Aleksander Kwaśniewski.[2]
- Alganov said that six months earlier, Russians had paid $1m to the Minister of Finance Wiesław Kaczmarek for the Russian company Lukoil to win the privatization tender for a refinery in Gdansk.[2][5][6]
Also present at the meeting was Aleksander Żagiel, Alganov's Vienna-based business partner.[7]
References edit
- ^ "Polish PM forced to resign over links with KGB man". The Independent. London. 25 January 1996. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ a b c Barnett, Neil (8 January 2006). "From Poland to Hungary, Gazprom takes stealth route to domination". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on May 22, 2008. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ "Chronicle of Russian Espionage in the Baltic Countries". Axis Globe. 2005-04-20. Archived from the original on 2007-09-14. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ "Baltic News (2005/01)". Baltics Worldwide. January 2005. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ Fleishman, Jeffrey (2004-12-05). "Oil scandal rocks Polish leadership - Some fear Moscow gaining influence". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ The cultural politics of military alliances and energy security Archived 2007-03-17 at the Wayback Machine. Michael D. Kennedy. September 23, 2005.
- ^ Polish oil case businessman fails to show before commission, "ill" in London. Asia Africa Intelligence Wire. November 09, 2004.