Week 4: Ukraine and Russia Trade Spying Charges

Summary:
The article called "Ukraine and Russia Trade Spying Charges" published in the New York Times by J.Levy Clifford is about a ring of Russian spies who were working together to trade and steal the Ukraine's military and state secrets. Currently, a Russian intelligence officer from the FSB (Russian Intelligence Agency) is being detained by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence Agency). The reason for this detainment? This Russian intelligence officer was accused of trying to illegally obtain Ukrainian intelligence by utilizing blackmail and threats. The current Ukrainian president,Viktor A. Yushchenko has been attempting to improve relations between the Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. This issue now serves to hurt the chances of these relations improving in the near future due to Russia and Ukraine's petulant relationship. The Ukrainian government has been exposing Russia's mistake via the media. The President's government has said that they want to make very clear to the Ukrainian people that the Russian Intelligence officers are not trustworthy. Although, the Ukrainian Intelligence officers aren't trustworthy either. Recently, Russian officials arrested an Ukrainian spy who was attempting to steal Russian intelligence. Upon arrest, this spy offered to work in cooperation with the FSB and to provide valuable information about the Ukrainian spying on Russia. The FSB rarely announces current events to the public but is doing so in this situation because they want to defend themselves against Ukraine's spies.

Correlation: This article correlates with a few different aspects of comparative government. The first aspect being that of transparency. Russia is currently informing their public about what is occurring between the FSB and the SBU. The idea of transparency is also closely linked with legitimacy because a government is bound to be found more legitimate if it regularly informs it's people about current events rather than leaving them in the dark and leaving them confused and unaware. It's also connected to globalization because this article deals with two countries who are having conflicts and spying on each other in order to have a gain on each other (rather than attempting to successfully and peacefully work together.) Lastly, this article connects with the aspect of media. These countries are both using media as a tool to defend themselves, show their side of the story, and help explain to the public exactly what happened.

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