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Russian Spy Case: Espionage or Politics?

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Foreign Policy writer Daniel Drezner said it was the "lamest espionage conspiracy....ever," sort of a "combination of illegal immigration and impersonating Jack Abramoff," the former lobbyist, businessman, and convicted con man now in a halfway house after serving three and a half years of a six year sentence.


Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating asked "Why Weren't the Russian 'Spies' Charged with Espionage? Because they didn't find out anything secret." Perhaps they weren't looking and did nothing illegal.


Columbia University Russia specialist, Robert Legvold, said anyone could have gotten what they did through a Google search. Throughout all their years in America, they never got close to obtaining classified information, and likely never looked for any.


On June 30, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, called the charges groundless and malicious, regretting they came after the Obama administration seemed ready for warmer relations. The Ministry's press office said the situation was being analyzed, adding that facts released so far are contradictory.


Mikhail Lyubimov, former KGB officer said the whole story looks like fiction, having nothing to do with real undercover work, saying:


"How can you imagine that eleven professionals didn't notice that secret services had been watching them (for) years? If not them, their wives could have noticed. And so far it's not clear at all exactly what information they've been looking for and what (they supposedly) sent to Moscow directly to the Kremlin, Medvedev or Putin. It's nonsense. And I don't even talk about invisible ink. I remember the Bolsheviks loved it."


"It's a PR campaign by the US secret services to get more money for next year's budget....It happens quite often that the administration and the secret services are conflicting. This could be the case."


Nikolai Kovalyov, former head of Russia's Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor agency, said US charges resembled a "bad spy novel," believing Washington "hawkish circles" want to show a tougher line toward Moscow for their own purposes, the alleged spies used as patsies for their scheme.


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