Putin To Appoint New Foreign Spy Chief

October 6, 2007 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that he would appoint former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to be the new director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Putin made the announcement after a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe.

The announcement comes a day after CIS leaders appointed Sergei Lebedev, who until now had been head of the SVR, to be executive secretary of the CIS Executive Committee.

(ITAR-TASS, Interfax, Reuters)