Minnesota Connection to Russian Espionage Case

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia with divulging military secrets about his unit’s activities in former Soviet republics over more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Prosecutors said Friday that 45-year-old Peter Debbins of Gainesville periodically met Russian intelligence as far back as 1996 and was even assigned a code name by Russian intelligence agents in 1997 when he was an ROTC student at the University of Minnesota.

According to an indictment, Debbins considered himself a “son of Russia” and believed the U.S. “needed to be cut down in size.” Debbins was arrested Friday and will make an initial court appearance in Alexandria on Monday.