“The Wall Street Journal”: “Putin Sings With Deported Agents”
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he sang patriotic Soviet songs with the 10 undercover agents who were deported from the U.S. in a recent spy swap, and he declared that their capture by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was "the result of treason."
Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joins a gathering of bikers in Ukraine astride a three-wheeled Harley Davidson clad in black. Video Courtesy of Reuters.
In Russia's first official comment since the agents landed in Moscow on July 9 and vanished from public view, Mr. Putin said he knew who was responsible for the betrayal.
"Traitors always end badly," he said. "They finish up as drunks, addicts, on the street."
Mr. Putin, a former KGB colonel, spoke to reporters Saturday during a visit to Ukraine. His remarks were posted Sunday on the Russian government's website.
Pressed by the reporters to say how he would deal with the alleged traitors, the Russian leader replied: "This cannot be decided at a press conference. The secret services live by their own laws, and those laws are well known to all secret service co-workers."
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks to the media in Ukraine.
Intelligence analysts have been intrigued by the question of how the FBI busted a network to which Russia had apparently devoted abundant time and resources. The 10 "illegals" arrested June 27 and charged with conspiring to act as secret Russian agents were exchanged for four imprisoned Russians convicted or suspected of passing secrets to the West.
According to the FBI complaint, the 10 agents had blended into American life and held ordinary jobs while working for Russian intelligence, mainly to compile data on people who could be later recruited as spies. Seven had used false identities; some had been monitored for as long as a decade.
"The Russians have to wonder how American security got onto them," said Harvey Klehr, an Emory University professor and co-author of "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America." "Did they intercept covert radio transmissions? Was there some error in the false documents the Russians used? Did 'legal' Russian agents from the embassy who met covertly with these 'illegals' make some kind of tradecraft error? Or does the CIA have a mole inside Russian intelligence?"
Others have speculated that the late Sergei Tretyakov, the former Russian officer who ran espionage activities in New York under the guise of a press attaché at the U.N. mission, may have blown the whistle on the spy ring after his defection in 2000. Questions have arisen about the loyalty of Christopher Metsos, the 11th alleged Russian spy arrested in the case, after he jumped bail in Cyprus and vanished.
Some analysts say Mr. Putin may have been referring to Mr. Tretyakov, who died of a heart attack last month, when he said Saturday that a traitor recently "ended his existence abroad, and it was not clear what the point of it all was." Mr. Putin didn't elaborate.
Mr. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on what the prime minister had learned about the ring's detection. "This is a matter for the Russian intelligence agencies, not the prime minister's office," he said.
Mr. Peskov also declined to comment on a report by RIA-Novosti, a government news agency, that the 10 deported agents would be given lie-detector tests. He said he didn't believe any agent was under confinement or suspected of betrayal.
American lawyers for three of the agents say their clients have no restrictions on their movement but prefer, for now, to stay out of public view. Anna Chapman, the 28-year-old Russian who became a tabloid star after her arrest, has had little contact with Russian officials since landing in Moscow in the spy swap, her lawyer told the Associated Press Thursday. American lawyers for the other seven haven't commented on their situation.
Russians following the aftermath of the swap have debated whether the deported agents should be treated as heroes or failures. Mr. Peskov said "that question was not on the agenda" of Mr. Putin's two-hour meeting in Moscow with the agents during the first week after their arrival.
"The mood was informal," the spokesman said. "The idea was to get acquainted with the prime minister."
In his remarks to reporters, Mr. Putin voiced sympathy for the deported spies. He said their superiors would conduct a comprehensive assessment of their work, but added: "I am sure they will work in decent places. I am sure they will have an interesting and bright life."
During his meeting with the agents, Mr. Putin said, "We talked about life. We sang 'From Where the Motherland Begins,' " a popular 1960s song made famous in a Soviet film about a Soviet spy working in Nazi Germany. "And other songs with a similar content."
He said the 10 agents "had a tough life" in America.
"Just imagine....You have to master a foreign language as your own, think and speak it and fulfill tasks in the interest of the motherland for many years without counting on diplomatic immunity."
By Richard Boudreaux
