Spy v Spy (again)

Ex-communist Europe

Eastern approaches

Russian "spies" unmasked

Spy v Spy (again)

by E.L. | LONDON

SPYCATCHERS are normally like salmon fishermen, using time, skill and patience in prodigious quantities to reap rare rewards. The latest haul for the FBI looks more like a duck shoot: 10 arrests, and one fugitive mastermind, all part of what appears to be the biggest Russian spy ring uncovered in the United States since the 1950s.

A word of caution: news management and disinformation are an integral part of the spycatchers' art. It is a fair bet that some of the things now being asserted are not true, and some of most important aspects of the case have gone unmentioned. In particular: what was the source of the original clue? Was it a defection, perhaps by Sergei Tretyakov, the senior Russian intelligence officer at the New York consulate, who was in fact working for the Americans in the final years of his career in the Russian foreign intelligence service? Or was it a lucky break in electronic intelligence gathering? Or perhaps a mistake in tradecraft by one of the "sleepers"?

It is certainly odd to have so many undercover intelligence officers caught in one swoop. Such people are the crown jewels of a foreign intelligence service, with carefully constructed identities and strict security precautions.

Details of the indictments are here and here.

PS: Interestingly there are no charges of espionage and the whole thing breaks out just days after President Medvedev's visit to Washington. Relations between Russia and America have improved since the Obama "reset". This episode could easily reverse that progress.