'IDF attaché sought info on Russia-Arab arms trade'
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says Colonel Vadim Leiderman, expelled from country on suspicion of industrial espionage, tried to obtain details on Russia's military, technological ties with Arab countries
IDF attaché in Moscow Colonel Vadim Leiderman, who was expelled from the country, was trying to obtain details about Russia's arms trade with the Arab world, the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday.
Leiderman was apprehended in Moscow on May 12, caught red-handed receiving classified information from a Russian citizen, the statement said.
Leiderman was declared persona non grata and given 48 hours to leave the country, which he did.
RBC television channel later aired footage of a man identified as Leiderman being approached by several men while he was dining with another man in a Moscow restaurant.
The Israeli official was then shown being interrogated in a Russian office, with his various accreditation and bank cards being laid out on a table for the camera.
His expulsion was the first such incident to occur between the two countries in nearly 20 years.
An unnamed Russian security official told news agencies on Thursday that Leiderman had engaged in industrial espionage.
'Obtained secret information'
Israel has rejected allegations reported in the Israeli media that Leiderman was a spy. The case was cleared for publication Wednesday.
But the FSB issued an official statement Friday saying the attaché was trying to collect details about Russia's arms trade with its Soviet-era partners in the Arab world.
Leiderman had approached "a number of Russian state workers for secret information about ... Russia's military and technological cooperation with – and assistance for – a number of Arab nations," the FSB statement said.
It added that Russia had decided to keep the expulsion secret as a "gesture of goodwill."
Russia and Israel enjoy close economic ties based on the Jewish state's vast ex-Soviet Diaspora.
But Russia is also a key arms supplier to the Arab world and continues to sell advanced missile systems to Syria that Israel fears make their way to the Shiite Hezbollah movement in neighboring Lebanon.
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