While Presidents Obama and Medvedev
ate hamburgers in Virginia, the net was closing in on a
ring of 11 Russian spies who had operated in America for over 10 years. They have been accused of taking false identities and acting as "sleeper agents", pretending to be American citizens whilst passing back information to Russia. The revelations have led to huge media coverage, particularly over 28 year old
Anna Chapman (see picture below), who had a lively Facebook account with photographs of herself in glamourous locations. Although they often used the internet to pass on information, the agents seem to have used
remarkably traditional methods as well, such as secret drop off points and codewords, just like in Cold War espionage stories.
There are some interesting comments on the affair, such as
this article from the creator of Spooks suggesting fact is often stranger than fiction, and
this analysis that the spy ring, despite the huge effort the Russian security service must have put into it, has actually yielded very little of value. Perhaps the inadequacy of their efforts is the reason why both the US and Russia are optimistic that the affair will cause little damage to their relationship in the long-term, once the media have stopped
showing pictures of Anna Chapman...
PS: Some more good stuff here from the BBC, including the
history of deep-cover spies, like British agent
Kim Philby, who spied for the KGB for 20 years, and a
profile of the SVR, formally known as the KGB (Committee for State Security), which can trace its roots back to the Russian Civil War in 1920.
