MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax-AVN) - A U.S. press report claiming that Russian intelligence services have intensified their activities in the United States was written to order, former deputy head of the Soviet KGB and ex-head of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service Leonid Shebarshin told Interfax on Monday.
"Such claims are never accidental. To my mind, it is a kind of Western pressure on Russia, in particular on the Russian administration," he said.
"The goal and strategy of this pressure is a separate matter," he said.
Time magazine wrote on Sunday, with reference to anonymous representatives of U.S. secret services, that the number of Russian intelligence agents in the United States has recently exceeded 100, which corresponds to the number during the Cold War.
Attempts by the FBI and other agencies to get more funding for the reorganization of U.S. secret services might be the cause for the Time report, Shebarshin said.
Soviet and Russian intelligence veteran and writer Mikhail Lyubimov shares this opinion.
"Reports on the alleged intensification of foreign intelligence activities in the United States are sort of a ritual, which are repeated every time the FBI administration wants to enlarge its staff," Lyubimov told Interfax on Monday.