Spy swaps

Ex-communist Europe

Eastern approaches

Spy swaps

How to trade spies

by E.L. | LONDON

TIME was when spy swaps took place in icy geopolitical conditions. The "reset" between Russia and America has put a layer of political warmth over the spymasters' steely calculations and the spies are going home in aeroplanes rather than tiptoeing across the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Soviet-occupied Potsdam.

The deal now under way is the first public spy swap for more than 25 years. It should be no surprise, given the public statements on both sides since the sensational arrests of 10 alleged Russian spies late last month. America had refrained from any triumphalist rhetoric. Russia had (largely) refrained from any bluster. It was in the interests of both sides to damp down an issue that might have led to blush-making revelations for all concerned. So the people on trial in America (seven "illegals", plus what look like two mainstream intelligence officers and a hapless spouse) have pleaded guilty and flown home.

Five of the suspects revealed their real names in court. All but the Peruvian journalist Vicky Pelaez also admitted that they were Russian citizens. The couple known as Richard and Cynthia Murphy said they were really Vladimir and Lydia Guryev, 44 and 39 years old. Donald Howard Heathfield was actually Andrey Bezrukov, 49, Tracey Lee Ann Foley was Elena Vavilova, 47, and Juan Lazaro was really Mikhail Anatonoljevich Vasemkov, 66. Anna Chapman never disguised the fact that she was originally Russian. Mr "Lazaro's" wife Vicky Pelaez, is a Peruvian-born journalist who appears to have been reluctant to leave with the rest. The fate of several children belonging to the deportees is still unclear.

Igor Sutyagin, a high-profile prisoner accused of spying for the west (which he denies) is one of four Russians pardoned by president Dmitry Medvedev and allowed to leave the country. Since 2004 he had been serving a 15-year sentence for espionage in a penal colony near Archangel (Arkhangelsk in Russian). But he is hardly an exact counterpart to the ten flying the other way. Many (including Amnesty International) regarded him as a political prisoner. The prosecution never proved that he had passed on classified information.

But Mr Sutyagin, however unwittingly, seems to have been involved in a botched Anglo-American spying operation: a nuclear-weapons specialist at a thinktank, he had been hired by a shadowy company called "Alternative Futures", working out of rented offices in London, to provide a review of open-source information about arms control. When he was in trouble, Alternative Futures disappeared.

Russia's spycatchers may have ransacked their cupboard to find some more items to trade, but they seem to have put little on the table. The Russian authorities regularly catch western intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover, such as the MI6 officers involved in the infamous "rock" incident. But they appear to have caught no western "illegals". One reason for that may be that there aren't any: western spy services find the idea of sending intelligence officers to live undercover in Russia for extended periods of time logistically formidable. Infiltrating people into the west is a lot easier.

That leaves Russians caught spying for the west. Leaving aside Mr Sutyagin, two big fish are heading back. One is Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former Russian intelligence officer who moved to the United States in 1998 and is believed to have handed over large amounts of secret material. For reasons that remain unclear (and against the advice of his American colleagues) he returned to Russia in 2001, on an American passport, and was sentenced to 18 years for treason. (Another Russian, Alexander Sypachyov, was convicted of spying for the CIA in 2002 for eight years but his lawyer said he did not wish to be traded. He would be due for release soon). Sergei Skripal, a retired intelligence officer, apparently from the GRU military intelligence service, was arrested in 2004 for spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in jail.

The fourth man on the list, Gennady Vasilenko, is a bit of a mystery. He appears to have been jailed in Moscow for other offences. A Reuters report suggests that he may be the same Gennady Vasilenko who was arrested in 1988 in Havana and spirited back to Moscow by the Soviet intelligence services. He was charged with espionage for the West and jailed, having allegedly been recruited during a previous stint working for the KGB in Washington, DC

What is odd is the absence of some others:

• Platon Obukhov was arrested in 1996 for spying for Britain. He ended up in mental hospital, is no longer in custody but is still subject to compulsory psychiatric treatment.
• Igor Vyalkov, an FSB officer, was sentenced in 2004 to 10 years for spying for Estonia, in a case that was linked at the time to British and American intelligence.
• Andrei Dumenkov was sentenced in August 2005 to a ten-year sentence for spying for Germany.

In the shadows, disgruntled muttering is audible. Did America bargain too softly? It is bad for the image of western intelligence services if their spies are left to languish behind bars. David Kramer, a former Bush administration official, thinks that America has laid too much stress on the health of its relationship with Russia, and not enough on what it actually gets out of it. He said on a BBC interview this morning (sorry, no link) that America should have gained more cooperation from Russia on issues such as non-proliferation.

It may be that other elements are also in the deal, but undisclosed. But on the face of it, this is a puzzling outcome. Russia's spycatchers like to boast that they catch dozens of western spies every year. So why were none of them available for swapping? Did America not want them? Or did they in fact never exist?