(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-06 22:04

DUSHANBE - Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will be appointed head of the country's foreign intelligence service, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday.

The file photo shows Russia's former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov meet with successor Viktor Zubkov (not pictured) in the White House government building in Moscow September 14, 2007. [Reuters]

Fradkov, 57, served as prime minister under Putin from 2004 until last month before being replaced by Viktor Zubkov in a government reshuffle ahead of parliamentary elections in December and presidential polls next March.

"As far as the name of the new head of the foreign intelligence service is concerned, he is Fradkov, Mikhail Yefimovich," Putin told reporters, using the surname, first name and patronymic of his new foreign intelligence chief.

Putin was in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, attending a series of summits of post-Soviet states.

Fradkov's predecessor as chief of the SVR foreign intelligence service was Sergei Lebedev, who on Friday was appointed executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which unites 12 former Soviet states.

The agency Fradkov will head, the Foreign Intelligence Service, is one of the successor agencies to the Soviet-era KGB.

Putin, himself a former officer with the KGB, in July pledged to strengthen Russia's military capability and to step up spying abroad in response to US policies -- and he singled out the Foreign Intelligence Service in particular to take a more active role in foreign espionage.

Last month, the United States top intelligence official complained that Russia, along with China, is spying on the United States nearly as much as it did during the Cold War