US-Russia Spy Exchange Brings Quick End to Case

09 July 2010

Russian, front, and American airplanes used Friday in the exchange of 14 people, including four Russian prisoners, at Vienna's Schwechat airport

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Russia and the United States have completed the largest spy exchange since the Cold War. On Friday, at an airport in Vienna, Austria, an American plane and a Russian plane landed, parked side by side and exchanged occupants.

The United States freed ten admitted Russian agents. The men and women were arrested in late June and pleaded guilty on Thursday.

In exchange, Russia released four Russians serving prison sentences on charges of spying for the West. The men include Igor Sutyagin, an arms researcher who always denied the charges. Some considered him a political prisoner.

The United States deported nine Russians and an American citizen born in Peru. Some raised children while living quiet lives as married couples. An eleventh suspect disappeared after being freed on bail in Cyprus.

The group was accused of trying to gain information on American nuclear weapons, foreign policy and politics for the SVR -- Russia's foreign intelligence service.

The way both countries are handling the issue suggests that "neither side is interested in starting a fight." So says Andrei Koztunof of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry praised the exchange, saying, "The action was taken in the general context of improved Russian-U.S. relations."