At least four Russians released in prisoner exchange with West are verified ‘illegals’

AT LEAST FOUR OF the eight Russians released by the United States and its allies last week, in exchange for 16 people held in Russian prisons, are verified ‘illegals’ —the term used to describe Russian non-official-cover intelligence personnel. All four operated using third country identity documents, including passports. In every case but one, these identity documents had been illegally acquired.

In intelligence parlance, the term ‘illegals’ emerged during the Cold War to describe Russian intelligence personnel who operated without any formal association with Russian diplomatic facilities. In many cases, these operatives used third country passports. This enabled them to operate with an unusual degree of flexibility and evade the attention of rival intelligence services. At the same time, however, the absence of diplomatic credentials prevented these operatives from claiming diplomatic immunity if caught. It thus exposed them to the possibility of lengthy prison terms upon discovery.

THE TWO GRU ILLEGALS

Among the prisoners exchanged last week was Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov. Rubtsov was born in the Soviet Union as the grandson of a Spanish evacuee, who had been taken to Moscow as a child by the leftist Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 9, Rubtsov moved with his mother to Spain, where he had his name legally changed to Pablo González Yagüe and grew up in Catalonia and the Basque Country. He was arrested in Poland in 2022 and charged with participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland on behalf of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as GRU.

IntelNews has previously reported on the case of Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, who was also released and returned to Russia on Thursday. Mikushin lived for several years in Canada and Norway using a Brazilian passport under the name of José Assis Giammaria. When he was arrested by Norwegian authorities, Mikushin was working as a researcher on arctic security affairs for the Arctic University of Norway. Among other things, Mikushin was a volunteer researcher for a UiT GreyZone, a scholarly project that studies contemporary hybrid threats and grey zone warfare. Like Yagüe, Mikushin is also believed to have been employed by the GRU.

THE TWO SVR ILLEGALS

Arguably the most unusual case of illegals among those unveiled last week is that of Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva. The couple moved from Argentina to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, in 2017. They brought with them their two young children, a boy and a girl, both of whom appear to have been born in Argentina. Artem Dultsev’s Argentinian passport bore the name Ludvig Gisch, born in 1984 in the West African country of Namibia. Dultsev posed as an information technology executive. His wife, Anna Dultseva, who operated an art gallery, used the cover name Maria Rosa Mayer Munos and went by Mayer.

The couple were arrested over a year ago by the Slovenian Security and Intelligence Agency, reportedly following a tip by “a foreign intelligence agency”. When their Ljubljana home was searched, Slovenian authorities found “an enormous amount of cash”. The couple are believed to have operated under the direction of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which is roughly equivalent to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Following their release on Thursday, the two illegals were shown arriving at an airport in Moscow accompanied by their two children, a boy and a girl, reportedly aged 8 and 11 respectively. According to the Russian government, the two children had been placed in foster care following their parents’ arrest. Both are native speakers of Spanish and speak no Russian. A Kremlin spokesman told reporters that the two children “found out that they were Russian only when the plane took off from Ankara”. They did not know anything about the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who personally welcomed the family at the airport.

THE OTHER FOUR PRISONERS

At least two of the four remaining Russian prisoners were found to have utilized forged passports at different times in their career. They include Vadim Nikolaevich Krasikov, a professional hitman who rose through the ranks of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). However, in Krasikov’s case, forged identity documents were used for short-term operations —often lasting just a few days— and did not form part of a long-term cover, as is the case with illegals.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 August 2024 | Permalink