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Putin names former prime minister next foreign spy chief

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday named his former prime minister as Moscow's next foreign spy chief, breaking the news during a visit in Tajikistan.

"So far as the leadership of the foreign intelligence service [SVR] is concerned, it is a man who you know well, Mikhail Fradkov," Putin told journalists.

Fradkov, 57, who resigned as prime minister last month after a little over four years in the job, remains relatively little known.

He is considered a technocrat loyal to the Kremlin, though not one of Putin's associates from the president's days as a spy, nor from the army.

Fradkov worked as former deputy prime minister Sergei Ibvanov's right-hand man on the Russian Security Council from 2000 to 2001, before heading up the Fiscal Police for two years.

The Russian press have depicted him as one of the heads of the "third mandate party," an influential group who have been trying to convince Putin not to stand down next March after holding two terms back-to-back.

The SVR, formerly the KGB, handles international espionage. Far from the lean years after the fall of the USSR, SVR maintains a large budget and has considerably intensified its activities. Washington regularly bemoans the presence of Russian spies in its territory.

Fradkov replaces General Sergei Lebdev, who has been spy chief since 2000. Lebdev was named to head the Community of Independent States, the group comprising all the former Soviet bloc countries except the three Baltic States.

Rapota, 63, has since 2001 served as the secretary of the Eurasian Economic Community, which comprises Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
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