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Feds charge former Green Beret with espionage with Russia

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FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Federal prosecutors have charged a former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia with divulging military secrets about his unit’s activities in former Soviet republics over more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Prosecutors said Friday that 45-year-old Peter Debbins of Gainesville periodically met Russian intelligence as far back as 1996 and was even assigned a code name by Russian intelligence agents in 1997.

According to an indictment Debbins considered himself a “son of Russia” and believed the U.S. “needed to be cut down in size.”

Debbins was arrested Friday and will make an initial court appearance in Alexandria on Monday.

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