A former U.S. Army Green Beret living in Northern Virginia has been arrested and charged with spreading military secrets about his unit’s activities over more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, told Russian intelligence that he considered himself a son of Russia, according to an indictment made public after his arrest on Friday.
Debbins thought the United States was too dominant in the world and should be cut to size, prosecutors argued.
The indictment also stated that Debbins was motivated in part by bitterness about his military career and a desire to make business contacts in Russia.
The espionage took place from 1996 to 2011, prosecutors said.
“The facts charged in this case are a shocking betrayal by a former army officer of his colleagues and his country,” FBI senior current official Alan Kohler said in a statement.
Debbins’ mother was born in the Soviet Union, and Debbins met his wife in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, where they were married in 1997, according to the indictment.
Debbins apparently met periodically with Russian intelligence in early 1996, when he was a student at the University of Minnesota, through 2011. So far back in 1997, he even got a code name assigned by Russian intelligence agents Ikar Lesnikov, after ‘ t he signed a declaration that he wanted to serve Russia, according to prosecutors.
Debbins received nominal payments for his information, even though he initially refused the money. In one encounter with Russian intelligence, he accepted a bottle of Cognac and a Russian military uniform as payment, according to the prosecutor.
Debbins will have an initial right appearance on Monday. He is accused under the espionage law of giving national information about defense to those who do not have the right to receive it. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Debbins held secret and later Top Secret security qualifications at the time of his criminal conduct, and also served in the Army Special Forces, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Debbins’ espionage began in late 1996 when he gave one of his Russian traders the names of four Catholic nuns he had visited in Russia.
He was assigned to a chemical unit in South Korea in 1998 and 1999, and the prosecutor says he provided his Russian traders with information about that deployment. He later deployed with his unit for special forces to Azerbaijan and Georgia.
He also provided all the information and names of his fellow members of Special Forces.
On several occasions, Russian traders asked Debbins for manuals for military fields. Debbins explained that he could not deliver them because he believed that wearing the Homeland Security manuals would require him to stop at the airport and occupy his electronic devices.
Debbins then lost his security declaration and command of his unit for an unspecified security breach in 2004 or 2005, and left the military in 2005 with an honorable discharge. He worked from 2005 to 2010 in Minnesota for a Ukrainian steel factory and a transportation company.
His security clearance was restored in 2010 by an army judge, according to the prosecutor, although the reinstatement came with a warning that his family and business ties with Russia might make him the target of a foreign intelligence service.
Debbins had told his Russian traders since 1997 that he wanted to leave the army, but they encouraged him to stay. They also encouraged his decision to join the special forces, saying that he was not useful to the Russian intelligence service as an infantry commander.
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