Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says (2024)

Why did Russian President Vladimir Putin greet the children of just-freed Russian spies in Spanish?

The reason is straight out of an episode of the hit TV spy show “The Americans.”

Among the first prisoners stepping off the plane to greet President Putin was a slender brown-haired woman grasping the hand of her young daughter. She appeared to stifle a sob as she hugged Putin. He handed her a bouquet of pink flowers, and another to her daughter. Putin also hugged her husband and kissed their son.

Then, over the din of the airplane, Putin could be heard greeting the children with “buenas noches” — the Spanish phrase for “good evening.”

Their parents were undercover Russian spies who posed as Argentinian citizens living in Slovenia and went by the names Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Muños. They were part of Thursday's massive prisoner swap involving several countries.

In “The Americans,” two Russian spies posing as a married couple in suburban America run Soviet agents and collect intelligence, unbeknownst to their young children. And the complex, controversial, Cold War-style prisoner swap from this week included at least one storyline seemingly written for it.

The two children, whose names have not been released, were swept up in a sprawling geopolitical world of stolen intelligence, kidnapped Westerners and historic deals, punctuated by the scene on the tarmac that analysts say could play into the Kremlin’s efforts to spin the prisoner swap as a propaganda win.

Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says (1)

The former prisoners moved to Slovenia in 2017, according to The Associated Press. The husband ran a startup. The wife had an online art gallery. Their actual names were Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva.

The Dultsevas were two of the eight Russians imprisoned in the U.S. and Europe and traded for four Americans — including Evan Gershkovitch and Paul Whelan — five Germans and seven Russian political prisoners released to the West.

According to the AP, the couple used Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, as their base to travel to neighboring countries, relay orders from Moscow and bring cash to other Russian sleeper agents.

Their children attended an international school in Ljubljana and, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, were only told on the plane to Moscow that they were Russian.

"Before that, they did not know that they were Russian, that they had anything to do with our country," Peskov said in a statement on Friday.

“They asked their parents yesterday who this guy was meeting them, they didn’t even know who Putin was,” Peskov said, before praising intelligence officers who "make such sacrifices for the sake of their work, for the sake of devotion to the cause."

That message — that Russian agents do important work for the motherland and that Moscow will always fight to get them back — is central to why President Putin will believe he scored a propaganda victory.

In this era, described by some as a new Cold War, the Kremlin needs professional spies willing to dedicate their life. Putin, himself a former KGB officer, is sending a message not just to the Russian people but to his intelligence agencies, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Putin is demonstrating “to the spies and murderers that he is akin to their father, which means there is hope that they will serve him even more zealously,” Abbas Gallyamov, a Russian political analyst and former Putin speechwriter turned critic, wrote on Telegram.

“To the bulk of the Russian public, the Russian president showed that he has not yet lost the remnants of adequacy and is capable of well-calculated, rational actions,” Gallyamov said.

Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva were arrested in Slovenia in 2022 and charged with espionage and using fake documents to register their firms. On Wednesday, the day before the swap was announced, they were sentenced to 19 months in prison each, after pleading guilty to spying charges.

In a speech delivered in the airport terminal to the returnees — which included spies as well as smugglers, cybercriminals and an assassin — Putin said: “I would like to thank you for the loyalty to your oath, your duty and your motherland, which has not forgotten you for even a minute.”

It's a message that's likely to be heard in hidden networks far beyond Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport.

Aurora Almendral

Aurora Almendral is a London-based editor with NBC News Digital.

Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says (2)

Keir Simmons

Keir Simmons is chief international correspondent for NBC News, based in Dubai.

Yuliya Talmazan

and

The Associated Press

contributed

.

Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says (2024)

FAQs

Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says? ›

Their children attended an international school in Ljubljana and, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, were only told on the plane to Moscow that they were Russian. "Before that, they did not know that they were Russian, that they had anything to do with our country," Peskov said in a statement on Friday.

Who were the children in the Russian Prisoner Swap? ›

Life for 11-year-old Sofia and 8-year-old Gabriel, who were born in Argentina, changed thereafter and they only learnt they were Russian when the plane set off from Ankara to Vnukovo Airport, the Kremlin said.

What were Russian spies called? ›

The KGB classified its spies as: agents (a person who provides intelligence) and. controllers (a person who relays intelligence).

Were there Russian spies in America during the Cold War? ›

Cold War espionage. Soviet espionage operations continued during the Cold War. The Venona project, declassified in 1995 by the Moynihan Commission, contained extensive evidence of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America.

What was the name of the American spy in Russia? ›

Aldrich Hazen Ames was arrested by the FBI in Arlington, Virginia on espionage charges on February 21, 1994. At the time of his arrest, Ames was a 31-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who had been spying for the Russians since 1985.

Who was the Russian family that was executed? ›

According to the official state version of the Soviet Union, ex-tsar Nicholas Romanov, along with members of his family and retinue, were executed by firing squad by order of the Ural Regional Soviet. Historians have debated whether the execution was sanctioned by Moscow leadership.

Are there Russian spies in America right now? ›

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday the number of Russian spies in the U.S. remains “way too big” despite recent efforts to root them out. “The Russian traditional counterintelligence threat continues to loom large,” Wray said at an event at the International Spy Museum.

What are Russian female spies called? ›

In the Soviet Union, female agents assigned to use such tactics were referred to as swallows, while male ones were known as ravens. A commonly known type of sexpionage is a honey trap operation, which is designed to compromise an opponent sexually to elicit information from that person.

Who was the worst spy in US history? ›

Robert Hanssen
Criminal charge(s)18 U.S.C. § 794(a) and 794(c) (Espionage Act)
Criminal penalty15 consecutive life sentences without parole
SpouseBernadette "Bonnie" Wauck ​ ​ ( m. 1968)​
Children6
12 more rows

What is a sleeper agent word? ›

A sleeper agent is a spy who is recruited and trained by an intelligence agency to live undercover within a target country.

Who is the most famous KGB agent? ›

For Americans, Ames is perhaps the most infamous KGB spy, having worked as a mole in the CIA for nine years until he was caught, tried, and convicted for treason. Ames was the son of a CIA officer who had worked undercover in Burma in the 1950s.

How accurate are the Americans? ›

The Americans Is Partly Inspired By Real-Life Events

However, they were inspired by a number of people who really exist, one couple in particular: Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov, who later took on the identities of Canadian couple Tracey Lee Ann Foley and Donald Howard Heathfield.

Who was the Russian spy girl? ›

Maria Valerievna Butina (Russian: Мария Валерьевна Бутина; born 10 November 1988) is a Russian politician, political activist, journalist, and former entrepreneur who was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia within the United States.

Who was the FBI spy for the USSR? ›

Robert Hanssen (born April 18, 1944, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died June 5, 2023, Florence, Colorado) was an agent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who was one of the Soviet Union's and Russia's most valuable double agents and the most damaging spy ever to penetrate the FBI.

Who was the first spy in America? ›

21-year-old Nathan Hale, perhaps America's best-known early spy, served with Knowlton's Rangers. In September 1776, Washington ordered Knowlton to send some of his men behind British lines in Long Island to reconnoiter enemy forces gathering to attack the Continental Army in Manhattan.

Who was in the Prisoner Swap? ›

American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan were among the 24 detainees released as part of a complex prisoner swap between Russia, the US and other Western nations.

Who kidnapped the two little girls in the movie prisoners? ›

Dover has realized that Joy must have heard him at the Jones's house. He returns to Holly's, prepared to torture her, but Holly takes Dover by surprise at gunpoint. She reveals that Jones gave the girls a ride in his RV, but had no thought of harming them, and that she alone was responsible for the abduction.

Were children sent to gulags? ›

Yet contrary to official propaganda millions of children were left abandoned, orphaned or separated from their families. Many of these unfortunate children found themselves victims of the Gulag.

Who was the Soviet boy that denounced his parents? ›

In 1932, Pavlik Morozov, a fourteen-year old peasant lad was murdered allegedly in revenge for having denounced his father as a kulak who had hoarded grain. His murder resulted in a show trial in the Morozovs' village, Gerasimovka, in Sverdlovsk oblast.

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