Top Russian Spy Defects.

[Atreus21]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101111/wl_nm/us_russia_usa_spies

Top Russian spy defects after betraying ring in U.S.

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By Thomas Grove – 2 hrs 17 mins ago

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War.

The newspaper, Kommersant, identified the man as Colonel Shcherbakov and said he was responsible for unmasking a Russian spy ring in the United States in June whose arrests humiliated Moscow and clouded a "reset" in ties with Washington.

The betrayal would make Shcherbakov one of the most senior turncoats since the fall of the Soviet Union and could have consequences for Russia's proud Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and its chief, former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

Kommersant said Shcherbakov, whose first name it did not give, had been responsible for "illegal spying" in the United States, meaning spies operating under deep cover without diplomatic immunity.

Confirming Kommersant's report was accurate, Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's security committee, said it was a major failure by Russian intelligence and a success for the United States.

"It is a major blow to the image of the Russian intelligence services," he told Reuters.

The paper said Shcherbakov had left Russia days before U.S. authorities announced the spy ring arrests on June 28 and quoted a Kremlin official as saying a Russian hit squad was probably already planning to kill him.

"We know who he is and where he is," the unidentified official was quoted as saying. "Do not doubt that a Mercader has been sent after him already."

Ramon Mercader was the Russian agent who murdered exiled Bolshevik Leon Trotsky with an ice axe in Mexico in 1940.

SPY SWAP

All 10 spies arrested in the United States pleaded guilty and were deported to Russia in a swap less than two weeks later.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, greeted them as heroes. He said traitors came to a bad end, and the informer would be left to the mercy of his own kind.

"The special services live by their own laws and everyone knows what these laws are," he said shortly after the swap.

Despite Moscow's tough talk, the revelation could damage the reputation of the SVR.

Former U.S. intelligence officer Mark Stout said: "Recruiting a Russian officer who was actually in charge of so-called 'illegal operations' in the U.S. is about as big a counter-espionage success as U.S. intelligence can hope to get."

Kommersant quoted an unidentified source as saying Fradkov could be sacked and the SVR folded into the powerful Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor of the Soviet-era

KGB.

"The damage inflicted by Shcherbakov is so enormous that a special commission should be created to analyze the reasons which allowed this complete failure to happen," Gudkov said, although he cautioned that it was too early to decide whether the SVR should be merged into the FSB.

Putin, who served a stint as FSB chief during his rise to power, has installed many allies from his KGB days in top government posts and former members of the security services are considered to wield a great deal of power inside the Kremlin.

Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Sergei Ivanov declined to comment on the Kommersant report.

U.S. authorities said in June the Russian spy ring had been operating in the United States for 10 years, its members adopting false identities and blending in while they tried to gather intelligence for Moscow.

Espionage historian Phillip Knightley said the report should be viewed in the context of the smoke and mirror world of Moscow's spy agencies.

"How do we know it is not a plant to draw Western attention away from the real betrayer? Or just to sow confusion in Western spy services?" Knightley said.

(Additional reporting by William Maclean in London; Writing by Thomas Grove and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

For some reason, that espionage historian's quote brings to mind South Park.

"And that means the only person I can't trust...is myself." BLAM!

 

[Nebor]

I'm guessing he flipped for cash.

 

[ElFenix]

not the hot one no care

 

[PottedMeat]

so they're saying this colonel is probably livin' it up in the bowels of CIA headquarters 6 months ago?

 

[JSt0rm]

The Russians dont fuckin play. This dude is dead.

 

[Craig234]

A couple more interesting characters IMO:

- In the early 1960's, a top Soviet in the nuclear weapons area decided to be a spy for the US.

He had the chance to approach US intelligence officials and offer his services on a trip to the US - and the offer was bungled by the US, bureacracy, not trusting, etc.

But he actually persisted, and after providing plenty of documents as 'proof', was finally accepted by a thrilled CIA.

He provided the central information on the Soviet nukes that was invaluable - and helped JFK know the Soviet capabilities in deciding how much to push the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis. His motive appears largely related to a grievance over his ethnic heritage where he felt the government had mistreated/insulted it.

Rather than reward, the Soviets stumbled across him when he went to a 'safe house' meeting that was being monitored by the KGB because of suspicions about a woman unrelated to him, and they just happened to see him and it led them to investigate, and he was tried, found guilty, and shot.

A second man wasn't a spy, but a reminder how crazy the nuclear risk was. Even in 1983, decades after the risk was better understood, an alarm of US nuclear missiles came in and this officer had seconds to decide whether to launch the counter-attack at the US he was supposed to.

Suspicious it was a false alert, he did not order it, and the Soviets were embarrassed by the problem and forced him into early retirement with a small pension, saying he had violated procedures. In 1998, fellow officers who had seen what happened wrote about it and the story came out.

Both of these men have been called 'the man who saved the world'.

 

[Trianon]

not the hot one no care

by popular request

http://www.maximonline.ru/devushki/devushki-soblozhki/_article/agent-90-60-90/

 

[EagleKeeper]

He was a spy master, not the spy.

 

[kage69]

Putin has probably made this guy a top priority, but being the goldmine of intel that Shcherbakov is the guys down in Langley have probably already given him plastic surgery, a 30 man security detail and permanent accommodations on a base.

He's going to be in hiding the rest of his life and will never be able to leave this country. Makes me wonder what his motivation was...

Revenge is a big deal to Russians. Our guys will have their work cut out for them and for some time as well. Good luck Colonel.

 

[bfdd]

Damn... that shit is pretty crazy.

 

[manimal]

A couple more interesting characters IMO:

- In the early 1960's, a top Soviet in the nuclear weapons area decided to be a spy for the US.

He had the chance to approach US intelligence officials and offer his services on a trip to the US - and the offer was bungled by the US, bureacracy, not trusting, etc.

But he actually persisted, and after providing plenty of documents as 'proof', was finally accepted by a thrilled CIA.

He provided the central information on the Soviet nukes that was invaluable - and helped JFK know the Soviet capabilities in deciding how much to push the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis. His motive appears largely related to a grievance over his ethnic heritage where he felt the government had mistreated/insulted it.

Rather than reward, the Soviets stumbled across him when he went to a 'safe house' meeting that was being monitored by the KGB because of suspicions about a woman unrelated to him, and they just happened to see him and it led them to investigate, and he was tried, found guilty, and shot.

A second man wasn't a spy, but a reminder how crazy the nuclear risk was. Even in 1983, decades after the risk was better understood, an alarm of US nuclear missiles came in and this officer had seconds to decide whether to launch the counter-attack at the US he was supposed to.

Suspicious it was a false alert, he did not order it, and the Soviets were embarrassed by the problem and forced him into early retirement with a small pension, saying he had violated procedures. In 1998, fellow officers who had seen what happened wrote about it and the story came out.

Both of these men have been called 'the man who saved the world'.

This story and the nuclear missle subs hitting each other in the 80s were probably the closest we came to fallout NV.....