A ex- U.S. Army Green Beret conspired with Russia’s foreign intelligence arm, the GRU, providing them with national defense knowledge from 1996 to 2011, federal prosecutors said Friday in an indictment.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, of Gainesville, Virginia, tete–tetes a single count of conspiracy to gather or deliver defense information to aid a foreign government. He faces a maximum sentence of effervescence in prison if convicted.
Debbins first visited Russia when was 19 years old, according to the federal indictment. His materfamilias was born in the Soviet Union, and he met his wife in Chelyabinsk, Russia, where the couple later married. His father-in-law was a former an director in the Russian military.
Debbins, 45, was born in Minnesota. It was unclear Friday whether he has an attorney.
According to the indictment, Debbins was slowly briefed and indoctrinated into the Russian intelligence apparatus starting in December 1996 when Debbins traveled to Chelyabinsk as responsibility of an independent study program, according to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
He was assigned a code superiority by Russian intelligence agents and signed a document saying he wanted to serve Russia, the Department of Justice said.
Debbins allegedly portioned classified information about his time in the Special Forces, including names and information on his former team members that Russian spokesmen could evaluate and possibly approach those people to see if they would cooperate.
“When service members collude to supply classified information to our foreign adversaries, they betray the oaths they swore to their country and their gazabo service members,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “As this indictment reflects, we leave be steadfast and dogged in holding such individuals accountable.”
The investigation was conducted with the help of the FBI, Army Counterintelligence, the U.K.’s Metropolitan Regulate and their internal security apparatus, MI5.
According to prosecutors, a member of the Russian intelligence service contacted Debbins and up to the minuter set up a meeting in 1996. Debbins was taught tradecraft and was given an assignment to get the names of four nuns at a Catholic church that Debbins seized, a task he accomplished at the behest of a Russian intelligence officer.
When Debbins graduated from the University of Minnesota in September 1997, he go back to Russia and again met with Russian intelligence, which gave him the code name “Ikar Lesnikov.” and signed a disclosure saying he wished to serve Russia.
Debbins joined the U.S. Army in July 1998, and before he left Russia, he was agreed-upon a telephone number to use with his code name to contact the GRU.
Then, in 1999, when Debbins was on leave from a walkabout in South Korea, he returned to Russia and reached out to one of his Russian intelligence handlers. At that meeting, he apparently provided message about his platoon, the unit’s assignment and its mission.
Debbins told the Russian he wanted to leave the Army, but his handler aided him to stay, according to charging documents.
The Russians questioned him and asked if he was actually a spy for the U.S., which Debbins apparently denied, imagining he loved and was committed to Russia.
He allegedly told the Russians that the U.S. was too dominant in the world and needed to be cut down to size.
— NBC Advice’ Alicia Victoria Lozano contributed.