Konstantin Georgiyevich Preobrazhenskiy (; born 1953 in Moscow) is a former

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

lieutenant colonel, an intelligence expert and the author of several books and numerous articles about Russian

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

organizations. Preobrazhenskiy is known for his publications about KGB operations in Japan, recruitment of Russian emigrants by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and infiltration of the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

by the KGB/

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(FSB).

KGB career

Preobrazhenskiy graduated from the Institute of Asian and African countries of the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in 1976 and started working in the Foreign Intelligence department of the KGB. He was an advisor on China, Japan and Korea to Leonid Zaitsev, the Head of the Scientific and Technical Intelligence (Directorate “T”), in the

First Chief Directorate The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence agency, intelligence activities by providing for the training a ...

. In 1980–85, Preobrazhenskiy worked under cover as a

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correspondent at the KGB station in Tokyo. He recruited Chinese scholars for the Soviet Scientific and Technical Intelligence. In July 1985, the Japanese police arrested him at a meeting with his Chinese agent, and he was transferred back to Moscow. He described these events in book “The Spy Who Loved Japan” published in 1994.

Writer and journalist

In 1991, Preobrazhenskiy left the KGB and started authoring books and articles about Russian state security services and on various political subjects. In 1993–2002, he worked as a columnist for the '' Moscow Times'' newspaper. He fled to the United States in January 2003, after several episodes of harassment by Russian state security services. He was granted

political asylum The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...

in March 2006. He is a regular guest on the

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and has been a lecturer at Columbia, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities as well as an invited speaker at The Intelligence Summit. His most recent book is titled "''KGB/FSB's New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent''"

Statements

Preobrazhenskiy had numerous meetings with the former FSB officer

Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko (30 August 1962 ( at WebCite) – 23 November 2006) was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organized crime, ...

and commented on his assassination: :I have no hesitation to say that he was murdered by

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

, who considered him to be his personal enemy. Putin is very vulnerable to criticism. He has the

inferiority complex In psychology, an inferiority complex is a consistent feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient, or inferior, to others. According to Alfred Adler, a feeling of inferiority may be brought about by ...

. And Litvinenko knew a lot about Putin, about his drawbacks, about his connections with some political forces which are not disclosed even now, because Litvinenko knew Putin personally. And Putin was the person who dismissed Litvinenko from the FSB. According to Preobrazhenskiy, Putin initially worked in the 5th KGB department that was responsible for suppression of internal dissent in the country''Inside Putin's Russia''
page 58

Articles and interviews

His interview

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<--Interview:Broken Link
Interview about his new book

Russian Orthodox Church and KGB
His interview,

Poisonings of priests in Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia
Part I
Poisonings of priests in Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia
Part II

*Discussion of his articles about Russian Orthodox Churc

Books

*''Unknown Japan''. Преображенский К.Г. Неизвестная Япония. - М.: АО "Япония сегодня", 1993. - 286 с.: ил. *''KGB in Japan. Spy who loved Tokio''. Преображенский, Константин Георгиевич. КГБ в Японии. Шпион, который любил Токио. - М. : Центрполиграф, 2000. - 455, с., л. портр. : ил. - (Секретная папка)

*''Back from the Dead: The Return of the Evil Empire'', with Cliff Kincaid of

Accuracy in Media Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit conservative news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine. AIM supported the Vietnam War and blamed media bias for the U.S. loss in the war. During the Reagan administration, ...

, J. R. Nyquist, and Toby Westerman,

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=B00MHGG784 (2014)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Preobrazhenskiy, Konstantin Russian male writers 1953 births KGB officers Living people Moscow State University alumni