Interfax: Drusher Poteev died in the USA

In the USA, a former colonel of Russian foreign intelligence, Alexander Poteev, who was convicted in Russia for 25 years for the Stateismman, died. According to Interfax, informed sources reported this.

"According to some reports, Potheev has died in the United States. This information is currently being checked," said one of the agency’s interlocutors.

Another source did not rule out that "it can be a misinformation aimed at ensuring that the traitor was simply forgotten."

The foreign intelligence service did not comment on the message of the death of Poteev. The source familiar with the situation only noted that the defector is still on the international wanted list. “Without receiving official documents about his death, he is listed alive and, accordingly, cannot be removed from the international wanted list,” the agency’s interlocutor said.

The Kremlin also refrained from commenting. “This is not a question of the president and the Kremlin’s question,” RIA Novosti quotes the words of press secretary Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov.

On June 27, 2010, on charges of “deeply conspiracy tasks” in the United States, ten people were arrested, including Anna Chapman. After some time, Moscow admitted that the detainees are Russian citizens. In early July, Russia and the United States exchanged four Russians convicted of espionage and pardoned by Vladimir Putin to ten Russian citizens detained in the United States.

In the fall of 2010, information appeared in the media about a person who could contribute to exposing the spies. Kommersant wrote about him as a certain colonel Shcherbakov, but later information appeared that the real name of the alleged traitor is Alexander Poteev.

The Russian authorities initially did not hide that the expanded spy scandal was the result of betrayal. In July 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the failed agents. "This is the result of betrayal, and traitors always end poorly." A senior employee of the Kremlin administration at the same time assured: "We know who he is and where he is. There are no doubt - Mercader has already been sent for him." In December 2010, Putin said that the Russian special services are not engaged in the physical elimination of traitors abroad. “As for the traitors, they themselves will bent,” he added.

On June 27, 2011, the Moscow District Military Court sentenced Poteev in absentia to 25 years in prison. The court deprived him of the title of Colonel and Gosnagrad. A fine was collected from him in the amount of his annual allowance. In August of the same year, the Supreme Court left the sentence unchanged, and he entered into force.

Alexander Poteev worked in intelligence for about 30 years. The first time he was sent abroad, to Afghanistan, in the late 70s as part of the KGB of the USSR, Zenit. In the 80s and 90s, being an employee of the First Main Directorate of the KGB, he constantly lived in different countries of the world under the guise of a dimensional, for a short time returning to his homeland only in order to get the next title and award.

In 2000, a recognized specialist in the United States Poteev’s leadership proposed to move to a permanent residence in Moscow in order to oversee and direct the work of their younger colleagues abroad. As a result, the personnel intelligence officer became the deputy head of the so-called "American" department of the Office with "the SVR, who oversees the work of scouts-illegals abroad.

Potheev oversaw the agents in the United States for ten years. In 2002, almost immediately after graduation, his daughter left for the United States, having concluded a contract with one of the prestigious consulting firms. Two years later, the scout’s wife, a housewife, settled in America, and at the beginning of 2010 his adult son, an employee of Rosoboronexport, fled there. All this time, the colonel continued to work in his position.