The US and Russia orchestrated the largest spy swap since the Cold War, exchanging 10 spies arrested in the US for four convicted in Russia in a tightly choreographed diplomatic dance yesterday at Vienna’s airport.
Two planes — one from New York’s La Guardia airport and another from Moscow — arrived in Vienna within minutes of each other, parked nose-to-tail at a remote section on the tarmac, then spent about an hour-and-a-half before departing just as quickly. A small bus was seen driving between the two planes.
The swap completed, a Russian Emergencies Ministry Yakovlvev Yak-42 plane left Vienna reportedly carrying the 10 people deported from the US. Shortly afterward, a maroon-and-white Boeing 767-200 that brought those agents in from New York took off, apparently with four Russians who had confessed to spying for the West.
The Russian flight landed at Domodedovo airport south of Moscow at 5:46pm. The US charter was believed headed to London.
Vienna has long been involved in such Cold War-like machinations, the capital of neutral Austria being a preferred place to work on treaties and agreements meant to reduce US-Soviet tensions.
Both countries won admissions of crimes from the subjects of the exchange — guilty pleas in the US and signed confessions in Russia. One alleged Russian spy wanted in the US was still a fugitive after jumping bail in Cyprus.
In exchange for the 10 Russian agents, the US won freedom for and access to two former Russian intelligence colonels who had been convicted in their home country of compromising dozens of valuable Soviet-era and Russian agents operating in the West. Two others also convicted of betraying Moscow were wrapped into the deal.
One ex-colonel, Alexander Zaporozhsky, may have exposed information leading to the capture of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.
US officials said some of those freed by Russia were ailing, and cited humanitarian concerns in part for arranging the swap in such a hurry. They said no substantial benefit to US national security was seen from keeping the captured low-level agents in US prisons for years.
“This sends a powerful signal to people who cooperate with us that we will stay loyal to you,” former CIA officer Peter Earnest said. “Even if you have been in jail for years, we will not forget you.”
The 10 Russian agents arrested in the US had tried to blend into US suburbia, but had been under watch for up to a decade.
The lawyer for one of them, Vicky Pelaez, said the Russian government had offered her US$2,000 a month for life, housing and help with her children — rather than the years behind bars she could have faced in the US.
In an elaborate round of dealmaking, US officials met on Monday in Russia with the convicted spies and offered them a chance for freedom if they left their homeland. Russian officials in the US held similar meetings with the agents captured by the FBI.
On Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree pardoning the four after officials forced them to sign confessions.
The Kremlin identified them as Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin, Gennady Vasilenko and Sergei Skripal.
Zaporozhsky, was sentenced in 2003 to 18 years in prison for espionage on behalf of the US. He was convicted on charges of passing secret information about Russian agents working undercover in the US and about US sources working for Russian intelligence.
Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was found guilty of passing state secrets to Britain and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006.
Sutyagin, an arms control researcher convicted of spying for the US, asserts his innocence despite a confession.
Gennady Vasilenko, a former KGB officer, was convicted in 2006 on charges of illegal weapons possession and resistance to authorities. It was not clear why he was included in the swap.
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