A former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces was arrested Friday on charges of conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to provide them with classified information that could harm U.S. national security, including details about his unit deployed on the Russian border.
Federal prosecutors accuse Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, of conspiring with and passing information along to members of Russian intelligence, including the notorious Main Intelligence Directorate known as the GRU, from December 1996 to January 2011, during which he allegedly told Russian intelligence he considered himself a “son of Russia” and was assigned the code name “Ikar Lesnikov.” He met his wife in Russia and married her there in 1997 after he agreed to work with the Russians and shortly before he became active in the U.S. military, according to a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“Our military is tasked with the awesome responsibility of protecting our nation from its adversaries, and its service members make incredible sacrifices in service of that duty,” said Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a press release. “When service members collude to provide classified information to our foreign adversaries, they betray the oaths they swore to their country and their fellow service members. As this indictment reflects, we will be steadfast and dogged in holding such individuals accountable.”
The 17-page indictment against Debbins indicates he first met with Russian intelligence while in Russia in 1996 and returned to visit the country frequently for more than a decade. When he was recruited, Debbins told the member of the Russian intelligence service that his views were “pro-Russian and anti-American.” During a 1997 trip, he was given his nickname, and in a 1999 trip, he told a Russian intelligence member about the number of men in his platoon in South Korea, along with its equipment and mission, saying he “thought that the United States was too dominant in the world and needed to be cut down to size.” Russian intelligence told him to stay in the Army and encouraged him to join the Special Forces during a 2004 meeting, paying Debbins $1,000 “as gratitude for his assistance to the Russian intelligence service.” Debbins became a Green Beret.
Debbins also provided Russian intelligence about his unit — the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group — during a 2003 visit, including the number of companies and men in the unit, their locations, and their roles, according to prosecutors. The Russians gave him a Russian military uniform and a bottle of cognac as a gift. During a 2008 meeting seeking business, he gave the Russians classified information about his former Special Forces unit’s activities in Azerbaijan and Georgia and provided names and information about former team members for Russian intelligence to approach. Prosecutors said he also fraudulently concealed all of this on background investigation forms when applying for security clearances.
The Justice Department said that Debbins “is charged with conspiring to provide United States national defense information to agents of a foreign government” and “faces a maximum penalty of life in prison” if convicted.
Debbins was active duty in the Army from 1998 to 2005, during which he deployed to South Korea in 1998 and 1999, was selected for U.S. Army Special Forces between 1999 and 2001, was stationed with the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany beginning in 2003, and deployed to Azerbaijan in 2004 with responsibilities for operations there and in Georgia, both on the Russian border. He gained a “Secret” security clearance in 1996 and then a “Top Secret” clearance with a “Sensitive Compartmented Information” clearance in 2004. And, although he was investigated for a security violation and was removed from command in late 2004 or early 2005, he was still honorably discharged in November 2005 and served in the Army’s inactive reserves from late 2005 through 2010.
The news about Debbins came a few days after the Justice Department arrested former CIA officer Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, for allegedly conspiring to sell U.S. secrets to the Chinese government before getting caught in an FBI undercover sting operation.
“Two espionage arrests in the past week – Ma in Hawaii and now Debbins in Virginia — demonstrate that we must remain vigilant against espionage from our two most malicious adversaries — Russia and China,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement. “Debbins violated his oath as a U.S. Army officer, betrayed the Special Forces and endangered our country’s national security by revealing classified information to Russian intelligence officers, providing details of his unit, and identifying Special Forces team members for Russian intelligence to try to recruit as a spy. Our country put its highest trust in this defendant, and he took that trust and weaponized it against the United States.”
