A family of deep-cover Russian spies hiding in the heart of Europe. A Slovenian spycatcher with a daunting mission. After months of reporting, WSJ's Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson unspool the story of the global hunt for Vladimir Putin's sleeper agents, and how it culminated in the biggest game of hostage diplomacy since the Cold War. Further Reading: -The Global Hunt for Putin’s ‘Sleeper Agents’ -Inside the Secret Negotiations to Free Evan Gershkovich Further Listening: -The Historic U.S.-Russia Prisoner Swap -Inside Russia’s Spy Unit Targeting Americans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
August 1st, 2024. Moscow. It was dark by the time the flight arrived. In news footage, you see a Kremlin honor guard with ceremonial bayonets. The Russians coming home are part of a prisoner swap. Among them are hackers, an assassin, an arms dealer. Dangerous men with notorious pasts. But there's one group that stands out.
They look like a study in a normal family next door.
Yeah. The first lady off the plane is a mom.
Yeah. She has mousy brown hair. She's wearing a blue shirt, open at the collar, jeans and plimsolls. And with her is an 11-year-old girl.
That's our colleagues Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw.
A daughter has her hair up and wearing Harry Potter sneakers. This mom holding her daughter's hand is trailed by her husband and her son. They walk down the staircase towards this red carpet where the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is waiting. And he has a bouquet of flowers.
The camera shows Putin hugging the mousy woman. Then he greets the girl and her little brother. It's a little hard to hear Putin over the airplane. And Putin says to the girl, Why is he addressing this girl in Spanish?
This girl, until really a few minutes before, thought her parents were Argentinian citizens. The truth is, they were Russian spies who'd spent a decade, more, assembling an entirely fictitious life.
The children weren't told the truth about why their parents had been arrested, of course. They didn't know that their parents spoke Russian.
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