Report: Soviet Documents List Abbas as KGB Spy; Palestinians Deny Claim

The Times of Israel reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel’s Channel 1 television reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an archive smuggled out of the USSR.

According to Channel 1’s foreign news editor Oren Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983.

The documents — obtained by Israeli researchers Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez — purportedly show that Abbas, code-named Krotov (mole), worked under Mikhail Bogdanov, who was then stationed in Damascus and is today Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East.

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