Putin secretly honours spy couple exchanged in August prisoner swap

Vladimir Putin has awarded two Russian deep cover agents who were exchanged in August as part of the biggest prisoner swap between Russia and the West in modern history with the Order of Courage, independent media outlet Agentstvo reported on Tuesday.

Citing an article in the Razvedchik, a magazine affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Agentstvo said that husband and wife Artyom Dultsev and Anna Dultseva had been recruited by Russian intelligence in 2009 and deployed abroad “under special conditions” in 2012.

Razvedchik did not clarify when the Dultsevs had received the Order of Courage, a state award given to citizens who have shown “selflessness, courage and bravery”, Agentstvo wrote.

The Dultsevs, who lived in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana with their two children assuming the identity of immigrants from Argentina, were sentenced by a Slovenian court to 19 months in prison in July on charges of espionage. However, they were then swapped in a deal brokered by Russia and the West that saw eight Russian citizens who had been serving prison sentences in the US, Germany, Norway and Slovenia returned to Moscow in exchange for the release of 16 political prisoners imprisoned in Russia.

The couple and their Spanish-speaking children, who had spent a year and a half in foster care in Slovenia while their parents awaited trial, were personally greeted by Vladimir Putin upon their arrival in Russia alongside with the other returnees, including convicted FSB assassin Vadim Krasikov.

During the welcome ceremony, Putin thanked the freed Russian prisoners for their loyalty to their oath, duty and motherland, which he said “never forgot about you for a moment” and promised them that they would be awarded state honours.