![]() It tells the story of two KGB officers posing as a married couple who live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Perhaps, people said, the Chapman ring was a set of Soviet agents that the Russians forgot about after the wall came down? The story was later used as the premise for a TV show, "The Americans," starring Keri Russell. She lived in London for at least five years, between 20, and worked at NetJets and Barclays, before moving to America. She gained UK citizenship through a marriage to a British citizen she met at a rave. Chapman did not appear to be engaged in any serious spying. ![]() When Chapman (real name Anna Vasilevna Kushchenko) was arrested, the media treated the event like a joke. (Coincidentally, Skripal arrived in the UK because he was one of the Russian spies taken in by the West as part of that swap.) The most famous of the "illegals" is probably Anna Chapman, who was arrested and deported from the US with nine other sleeper agents in 2010. Some illegals will be used to identify targets for assassinations.Īnna Chapman posted this photo of herself on Facebook before she was arrested. The scariest part is what they are capable of if Russia wants to activate them in an emergency. These programmes remain as strategic, long-term, resource-intensive in nature and prized as ever, with a single purpose: placing hand-picked Russian intelligence assets across foreign societies and governments, regardless of the current state of East-West relations," he told Business Insider recently. "Despite the 'end' of the Cold War in 1989-1991, Russia's decades-long 'illegals' programmes didn't miss a beat. "'Illegals' are the most prized of intelligence officers," Madeira, the author of " Britannia and the Bear," a history of espionage between the two nations, concluded. Having few(er) or no traceable links to a hostile intelligence service, NOCs are far more difficult to detect, monitor and counter. A banker or travel agent may be just that – or they may also be intelligence officers or assets (the latter willing or coerced). their own identity, sometimes called ‘non-official cover’ or NOC). This is a particular problem if an intelligence officer/asset uses ‘natural cover’ (i.e. Nowadays, UK CI and CE resources are much diminished, while former Warsaw Pact nationals can easily travel across NATO. These hand-picked, deep-cover intelligence officers live abroad under assumed ‘legends’: carefully constructed false foreign identities and life stories (over decades in some cases), allowing ‘illegals’ to blend in." ![]() But he also included this tidbit about Russia's "Main Intelligence Directorate," the GRU, and its "illegals" operation, which places spies in Britain and the US where they live seemingly ordinary lives, until called upon by Moscow: ![]() Most of his evidence focused on the fact that Russia's intelligence services vastly outnumber their counterparts in the UK. In written evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee, Madeira - a Russia expert - described the resources Russia commands in its efforts to subdue British, European and American influence. The Russian security and counterintelligence apparatus likes it when its enemies are confused and distracted, and they put a lot of effort into keeping it that way. If you are baffled as to why Russia might want Skripal - who ceased to be active as a spy in 2004 - dead, that is the whole point, Madeira told Business Insider recently. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. ![]()
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