WASHINGTON – The FBI
is looking into whether the U.S.-based director of a Russian government-run
cultural exchange program is a spy who tried to recruit young Americans as
intelligence assets, a national intelligence community official said Wednesday.
The magazine Mother Jones, which first reported the probe,
said the organization run by Yury Zaytsev has footed the bill for about 130
Americans to visit Russia. The 130 include political aides, nonprofit advocates
and business executives.
The Russian Center for Science and Culture offers language lessons and cultural programming.
The Russian Center for Science and Culture offers language lessons and cultural programming.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the
probe was still underway.
An FBI spokesman, Jason Pack, declined to comment.
Mother Jones said Zaytsev or his associates had begun to
build files including one on a participant who had been an adviser to an
American governor.
The magazine said FBI agents have been interviewing
Americans who participated in the program. It added that Zaytsev did not travel
on the exchange trips he helped arrange, and that his contact with the
Americans who went on these trips was limited.
Zaytsev does not have a Washington phone listing. The center
where he works referred calls for comment to the Russian Embassy, which did not
answer the phone late Wednesday.
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