OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2008. Foreign intelligence services continue to try to obtain classified information on the Sevmash shipyard in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk Region, a senior FSB official said. The countries involved included the United States and "some of its NATO allies".

Sergey Stepura, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Directorate for the Arkhangelsk Oblast said that intelligence services from USA, its NATO allies and even some Asia-Pacific states in 2008 tried to get their hands on classified information on certain aspects of the activity at the military-industrial enterprises in Severodvinsk and the use of leading Russian technology in construction and modernization of submarines.

- Both Arkhangelsk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug attract the attention of foreign intelligence services, Stepura said. The Plesetsk cosmodrome is also in the foreign intelligence agents’ focus. Several foreign intelligence agents, as well as persons suspected of working on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies, had been "spotted around sensitive areas."