Medvedev was not caught in the net

Spies - separately, Russian-American relations - separately

Moscow does not intend to succumb to the provocations of American intelligence services and follow the path of “symmetrical responses” in connection with the spy scandal that broke out last week. Dmitry Medvedev made this clear when he congratulated Barack Obama on Independence Day yesterday.

The Russian president's message has an emphatically benevolent tone and personal character. Mr. Medvedev addresses his colleague on a first-name basis. At the same time, as many noted during the head of state’s recent visit to Washington, the presidents began to avoid deliberately demonstrating their friendly relations and no longer call each other Dmitry and Barak in public.

“I remember with warmth our friendly interactions in Washington,” Mr. Medvedev writes in a congratulatory telegram. “The negotiations, as always, had a substantive focus, and the agreements reached are designed to give the necessary dynamics to active work to develop a mutually beneficial and pragmatic Russian-American partnership.” The Russian president's warm memories are clearly not overshadowed by the fact that the arrests of "spies" began within hours of his split from Mr. Obama.

The Kremlin is clearly inclined to think that the American president is an “outsider” in the scandal. Even the White House press secretary's statement that Mr. Obama was aware of the impending arrests at the time of negotiations with Mr. Medvedev is questioned in Moscow. “We most likely won’t know the truth yet. But of the two bad options - admitting that Obama was in the know or not in the know - it is clear that they chose the first. To say that he knew nothing is a bad option for Obama from all points of view,” says Vremya Novostei’s source in the Kremlin.

Most likely, both presidents would prefer not to have anything to do with the scandal, which exposed the dubious activities of the intelligence services of both countries. According to Mr. Medvedev, the significance of decisions made at the presidential level is much more important. “I am confident that constructive, good-neighborly relations between Russia and the United States meet the genuine interests of the peoples of our countries, security and stability throughout the world. This alone predetermines the futility and inconsistency of attempts to belittle the significance of what we have achieved and interfere with our consistent work in a spirit of partnership,” he writes.

Meanwhile, court hearings in the case of a spy network accused of working for Russia have already been held in various US cities and will continue in the near future. In particular, new hearings are scheduled for July 16 in Boston, America, at which several people from the group will appear before a judge. One of the ten arrested, Juan Lazaro, has already confessed. The American press reports this with reference to the prosecutor's office. Thus, the suspect said that he was not a citizen of Uruguay, although he stated this during his arrest, and under an assumed name he worked for Russian intelligence.

According to him, he spent his childhood in Siberia, and bought a house near New York “with service money.” “Although he loved his son, he would not break his loyalty to the “service” even for the sake of his son,” the New York Times newspaper quotes investigators as saying after interrogating Lazaro, who still has not revealed his true name. At the same time, he allegedly admitted that his wife, Peruvian journalist Vicky Pelaez, also transmitted information to Russia. However, she herself insists on her innocence. She is now free on bail of $250,000.

The scandal, which began as a farce, gained seriousness after Christopher Metsos, the eleventh of the suspected "spies", escaped from the Cyprus police. He was on this island at the time of the failure of the other members of the network, was arrested, but released on bail, after which he disappeared. Soon followed by the confessions of Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, arrested in the Washington suburb of Arlington, that their real names were Mikhail Kutsik and Natalia Pereverzeva, respectively. This gave the whole plot the character of a drama. This couple has two small children, who, taking into account the articles of the US criminal code, may have to live without their parents for the next 25 years. It is possible that concerns and fear for their fate forced the mother and father not to shut themselves up before the investigation.

All viewers of the television series “Seventeen Moments of Spring” have long understood how the presence of children complicates the work of hunters of other people’s secrets. Let's remember the extra trouble and risks that Stirlitz had to endure while saving the radio operator Kat and her child. Former FBI agent Eric O'Neill is unlikely to have seen this film, but he agrees with the aggravating role of the “child factor” in illegal activities. “If you are an intelligence officer, this work becomes the meaning of your life,” he says. - You focus on performing the operation, on collecting data. Well, when you are a parent, you are supposed to take care of your children first, they should take first place in life. But a real spy can’t afford that.”

Another couple, Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who were arrested in New Jersey, also have children. Their neighbors recall that the parents looked very happy when they walked their children to the bus stop or walked with them. According to them, the girls were taken away immediately after the father and mother were arrested by someone who identified himself as a family friend. It seems that Natalia Pereverzeva also contacted her relatives in Russia so that they would take care of her boys - one year old and three years old. Terry Bragston, a representative of the American Children's Defense League, is also sounding the alarm - the kids need urgent psychological help. “This is an unprecedented case,” he points out. - This has never happened in my practice. But in any case, it is obvious: any child in such trouble needs help to overcome this nightmare.”

Another question piqued the curiosity of the American press: what was the initial impetus for the FBI investigation? From the case materials it follows that the first information about attention to some of those arrested dates back to January 2001. Then counterintelligence agents obtained a court warrant to secretly search a safe deposit box belonging to a Cambridge couple, Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee-Ann Foley. The couple claimed that they were born in Canada. The agents were in for a surprise. Next to the Canadian birth certificate, they discovered a black-and-white negative of Tracy's childhood photograph on Soviet film Tasma. By 2004, the FBI had already wiretapped their home. And from one to another it gradually spread to the entire network. By the way, this couple also has two sons - 20 and 16 years old, who knew nothing about the secret life of their parents.

Some interlocutors of Vremya Novostey, in particular former KGB general Oleg Kalugin, who moved to the United States, consider the collapse of the operation with “illegals” a failure of Russian intelligence and a reflection of the decline in its professional level, a consequence of the bureaucratic approach to such delicate matters as the introduction of one’s own man, according to legend, into someone else's environment. According to him, it is likely that Russian intelligence services have not changed their tactics since the end of the Cold War.

“The most important thing for reports to the top—this was the case in the past and now—is to show that we have a network of agents,” says the former Soviet intelligence officer who became a US citizen. - It doesn’t matter what quality of information they get. The main thing is to report to high authorities about the presence in America of a network of informants who have or will have even better access to information.” According to the unwritten code of honor, the state is supposed to take care of its losers, and it will certainly act in this direction behind the scenes, without publicity. “In any case, this is how it was done in our time,” Kalugin noted.

“As for protecting the interests of Russian citizens abroad, this is the sacred duty of our diplomatic missions and consular offices in a particular country,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said recently. He explained that Moscow would like to receive from the Americans “full information about what exactly happened.”

Another version, which was told to VN by a source who asked not to be named, is that everything that happened has the same relation to intelligence as the comedy movie hero Borat has to “agent 007” James Bond.” The simultaneous introduction of 11 illegal agents, according to experts, is something unthinkable: they, like diamonds, are counted individually, and not in bulk. Therefore, according to the source, the entire grandiose operation was conceived as a scheme to pump money to “their people”: “Look, the main charges are not espionage, but money laundering, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years.”

According to the logic of our interlocutor, no one needed all this “garbage” referred to in the case materials as “information to the Moscow center.” After all, in newspapers and any Internet search engine you can find more accurate and more meaningful information. There is no need to send anyone anywhere and spend government money on growing flowers in New Jersey (a hint to the hobby of Cynthia Murphy, who grew hydrangeas in her garden) and the restaurant adventures of the red-haired Mata Hari (and this is about a graduate of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Anna Chapman, née Kushchenko ).

But if you imagine that in this scheme at every stage, as in many other Russian “businesses,” someone received their kickbacks, then everything will fall into place. The explanation for the failure is also clear (“it’s elementary, Watson”) - someone considered themselves offended, did not receive their share, or for some reason was excluded from the chain, and therefore took revenge with a simple denunciation. However, according to VN’s source, the American FBI is also not up to par in this story. For ten years they “pulled a dummy”, spent millions of dollars and man-hours, missed out on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 because of such distractions, and now they are probably puffed up with pride and are waiting for bonuses and promotions.

The third interlocutor of VN generally laughed it off: “There is so much unscientific fiction surrounding this case that only the Akunin-Fandorin couple can figure it out.” In any case, you should wait for the appearance of new parts and versions. Because in our time it is unfashionable to follow the advice of one of the heroes of Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Being lost in resolving these issues, I leave them without resolution.”

Nikolai SNEZHKOV, Washington, Andrey DENISOV