The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States gave the Russian special services information that helped to prevent bombings in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin press service reported.

It was reported that on December 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the head of the White House, Donald Trump, to thank him for the information that was sent.

Vladimir Putin thanked Donald Trump for the information provided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which led to the arrest of terrorists who were preparing to bomb the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg as well as other public places in the city. The information received from the CIA was used to investigate and arrest the criminals, the Kremlin press service said.

Putin also assured Trump that “the Russian special services, upon receiving information regarding terrorist threats against the U.S. and its citizens, will immediately hand it over to America through partner channels.”

On December 15, the FSB announced the arrest of a group that was preparing to set off bombs in different areas in St. Petersburg, including the Kazan Cathedral. A total of seven people were arrested, according to Meduza.

By December 17, five men had been arrested in St. Petersburg in the terrorist case: Shamil Omargadzhiev (native of Dagestan), Aliskhan Esmurziyev (Ingushetia), Firuz Kalavurov (Tajikistan), Yevgeny Efimov and Anton Kobets, tjournal.ru reports.

The FSB did not specify where the information about the upcoming terrorist attack came from, but noted that the alleged criminals received instructions from abroad via the messenger Telegram.

How the CIA managed to get access to the correspondence of the criminals on Telegram is not known.

In spring, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was forced to refute the fact that the CIA had cracked the encryption in Telegram. According to him, American intelligence has learned to hack both iOS and Android, so it doesn’t matter what kind of messenger a smartphone owner uses.

  Putin, Trump, St. Petersburg, CIA

Comments