10 charged as Russian spies

The FBI arrested five men and five women two days ago and charged them with spying for Russia. A sixth suspect remains at large.

The Washington Post:

The operation, referred to by U.S. investigators as "the Illegals program," was aimed at placing spies in nongovernmental jobs, such as at think tanks, where they could glean information from policymakers and Washington-connected insiders without attracting attention. ..

Two people arrested in New Jersey, known as "Richard Murphy" and "Cynthia Murphy," were instructed to obtain information about the U.S. position on a new strategic arms reduction treaty and Iran's nuclear program in advance of President Obama's visit to Russia last year.

My guess is, the program made Vladimir Putin feel clever and powerful, but the silliness of it reveals the opposite.

Frank Warner

Comments

[jj mollo]

You can take the boy out of the KGB, but you can't take the KGB out of the boy.

I don't know how silly it is though. This is the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure. It's all the things we don't know about that add up, including the cyber-warfare cadres of the PRC, Russia, and NKor. Russia wants to ally itself with China, I believe, but its mentality is more akin to the Mafia than the ComIntern. In his heart, Putin doesn't really believe that democracy and free markets will actually work with Russians -- not the Russians he knows. They barely work with Americans. Russians in America have called their home country "Nigeria with snow." Americans have more faith in what Russia can accomplish than the Russians do.

[Kevin]

As they say in Russia...