RESET CONTINUES

The sensational detention in the USA of a group of Russians suspected of spying could provide the script for a blockbuster. The question is whether it would be a drama or a comedy. 

On 27 June, the US secret service conducted searches in the houses of people who, it said, were part of a spying network. A total of 10 arrests were made, while another person was arrested in Cyprus. 

On 8 July, those arrested pleaded partly guilty in court, making it possible to swap them for four persons convicted in Moscow of spying for the USA. 

The American judge dropped charges of illegal legalization of incomes, falsification of private information etc. against the 10 people and ordered that they leave the country immediately after the decision. No mention was made of espionage at all. 

The exchange of "spies" conducted in Vienna on 9 July was reminiscent of cold war times with for one major difference. Obviously, neither the USA nor Russia wanted the scandal to affect bilateral relations and impede the "reset". Otherwise, it would not have been so easy to prepare the exchange scheme. Moreover, the USA had earlier exchanged persons convicted of spying, while in this case there was neither a spying charge nor a court sentence (which is probably explained by the fact that those detained simply had no time to take any action). The defendants were accused of money laundering; the amounts involved were negligible.

Never before, not even during about active spy scares, has the USA uncovered so many Soviet illegal aliens at one time, while the flashbulb closure of the incident prevented many from finding answers to some key questions. Perhaps this is why the exchange was carried out so quickly, in order to conceal as much information as possible. However, the "Russian spies" were hardly seen as a serious threat to the United States. 

At the same time, the incident has revealed some important issues - Russia has indirectly confirmed that it operates a "spying" network on US territory. In this case it appears that the mission of those detained was to prevent the emergence of potential "spies" within the USA. For this reason they simply had no time to establish good connections. 

Two of the 10, Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko, were initially identified as Russians. Two others, who introduced themselves as Mikhail Kutsik and Natalya Pereverzeva, acknowledged their Russian nationality later, while Juan Lazaro said he had spent his childhood in Serbia. Similar confessions were subsequently made by other detainees.

Meanwhile, US experts have established that the exposure of 10 Russian secret agents first of all had media impact. At the same time, the opportunity to expose a number of Moscow's "sleeping" spying organizations in America, ready to act as Trojan horses when necessary, has been wasted.

Although US secret service representatives have said that the swap idea emerged only after the arrests, their course of action points to the contrary. The issue was resolved extremely quickly; the Americans came up with a list of those they wanted to be released from Russian prisons almost immediately. 

Agreement to an exchange was subsequently reached in contacts between the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS), Mikhail Fradkov, and CIA director Leon Panetta. The agreement laid down not only a procedure for the release and departure of the arrested group from the USA and the four persons convicted for espionage in Russia, but also a promise from Moscow not to take retaliatory action against US citizens in Russia.

Of the Russians extradited to the USA, the most controversial choice of the US was certainly Igor Sutyagin, the only one of the four who is not a secret agent but a scientist. 

It is curious that both sides turned a blind eye to the obvious oddities of the operation. Russia, for example, by agreeing to a swap, essentially acknowledged that its citizens were spies, even though the US judiciary had not even begun to reveal its evidence. Moscow also agreed to exchange them for people who had caused major damage to the country's security. 

The USA, for its part, put the rights champions in both countries, as well as its own officials, in an awkward situation as they had been saying for many years that Sutyagin was not an agent.

Intelligence experts suggest that the most important of the extradited Russians is Aleksandr Zaporozhskiy. The Russian media say that the former KGB officer, decorated with state medals, had provided the CIA with information on 20 Russian agents. The second most important agent is Sergey Skripal, a former colonel in Russia's military intelligence. According to the Russian media, he has given away dozens of Russian officers who were working for British intelligence. 

It is also important that the "price" Moscow has had to pay for freeing its agents was not too high - spies already convicted were extradited. 

Such a massive spy swap between the East and West was last registered in 1985 when a Pole, Marian Zakharskiy, who was then spying in the USA, crossed the Glinike bridge in Berlin as part of a group of four, which was subsequently exchanged for a group of 23 who had been convicted of espionage for the then GDR and Poland. In those days, such events were seen as quite dramatic and propaganda driven. Talks took months and years, because the people in question had caused serious damage to countries by giving away important secrets. 

Suffice to remember how the Russian intelligence obtained documents on the development of a nuclear bomb. There were other less well-known successes. During the war, for example, the USSR managed to "borrow" drawings of radio-electronic devices from the US Emerson laboratory. It is believed that this was instrumental in shooting down, on 1 May 1960, a US spy plane piloted by Gary Powers.

Neither the Russians nor the American side wanted the latest spy scandal to continue. In fact, the exchange has enabled the secret services to meet their tactical goals. The CIA and the FIS have demonstrated that they stand by their failed agents, the FBI has shown that it is not working in vain (by managing to avoid examination of its rather frail evidence in court), while the Federal Security Service has put those rights activists who were defending Sutyagin in an awkward situation, as he was exchanged together with ex-officers of the KGB, FIS and the State Intelligence Department.

The USA's logic is also understandable: Russia has been accused of espionage, the detainees pleaded guilty, a serious blow has been dealt to the reputation of the FIS, while damage to the "reset" has been minimized.

Finally, an analysis of the Russian-US spy scandal suggests that the propaganda gains of its initiators, i.e. top US intelligence, proved to be more important than practical results. 

Of course, Moscow and Washington will continue to spy each other. Paradoxical as it may seem, the scandal has actually brought the two countries closer together and proved the efficacy of the "reset" by demonstrating that the USA and Russia can agree quite quickly nowadays.