Russians Among Us

by Gordon Corera

  CHAPMAN AND OTHER new illegals were called “agents,” since they were recruited by the SVR rather than having been selected and then put through the academy and trained up as full intelligence officers, like the “cadre” or family illegals. The selection, training, and cover of these agents was different. Normally they would be introduced to Directorate S by someone who had spotted them and told the SVR they might be both capable and useful. They would then be given some basic training and sent out into the field to see how they would manage. They would be given carefully selected operational tasks and if they showed they could cope, they would be given more training, a higher rank, and more advanced tasks. The advantage was that because their Russian heritage was not hidden they could travel back to Moscow easily for training and reporting. Using their true identity meant they could get around the problems other illegals faced with their false cover stories. Biometrics at the border were no longer a problem and when they did want to go back home there was no need for the complex routes via third countries and picking up of false passports to hide their trail that the other illegals were forced to deal with. Why did you need costly illegals when you had a small army of businessmen and young people who now easily traveled back and forth to the West? This was the significant shift within Directorate S—the realization that the new flow of Russians into the West offered new opportunities.

  One of the secrets within the KGB and SVR was that their legendary illegals were limited in what they could achieve. The “backstopping” (false backstory) of such officers was never going to be good enough to allow them to do what the Russians really wanted—directly infiltrate foreign governments and intelligence services. But still they were part of the mythology of the KGB and then SVR. Their presence allowed Russian spy chiefs to tell their president that they had people living hidden among the adversary, unseen and ready to follow orders. “That was of great comfort to them. It was almost in their DNA—they have to have these people throughout the world,” says one senior Western counterintelligence official, “but now when you flash forward into the twenty-first century that model was not really a successful model and so they had this other replacement model that was going to be much more successful and more importantly didn’t have limitations that the cadre illegals had.” Rather than spending years training a Russian to look like a Westerner, you could now just have a Russian open an art gallery in London’s Mayfair or Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which could attract all kinds of interesting people through its doors at receptions and whom you then might be able to report back on. Another difference was that the new special agents tended to operate alone rather than in couples. The old illegals had been sent as a pair since falling in love with a local risked blowing your cover. But an illegal who was single offered different possibilities.

  Anna Chapman would often be portrayed in the media as a “honey trap”—sent to seduce. The notion of Russian honey traps is part of popular culture thanks to films and books like Red Sparrow, the fictional account of a Russian ballerina trained by the SVR to seduce. The use of honey traps is well established as a technique to target foreigners within Russia (and also some countries where the Russians feel comfortable operating). Despite all the warnings, many a middle-aged diplomat has lacked the self-awareness to appreciate that the attractive younger woman he has met at the hotel bar is not actually interested in him for the reason he hopes. The video he might be shown a few days later will make that all too clear. A Marine Guard at the US embassy was compromised by a Russian woman back in the 1980s, and more recently, in 2009, a British diplomat was filmed with two women and had to leave the country. Men have also been used to entrap. One Russian in the early Cold War was used to target a ballerina in Paris who was friendly with American military officers. Men are also used to target other men. Because of the way homosexuality is viewed within Russia, they often think that entrapping someone in a homosexual relationship will provide leverage. Visitors to Russia are warned of the risks from both sexes. One FBI official used to warn members of Congress by telling them to go take a hard look at themselves in the mirror before they went to Moscow and rate their own looks. “If you are a solid 7 but when you travel everyone who comes up to you is a 10, you should be concerned.”

  But how extensively does Russia send “sparrows” abroad? Some believe Moscow is more likely to work opportunistically, keeping an eye out for any Russian women abroad who manage to get into a relationship with someone interesting and then approaching them. But others believe there is an established program. “Red Sparrow is not that far from the truth,” one senior US counterintelligence official claims. This was often built more around developing long-term relationships rather than one-night stands. A former member of Directorate S says that in the 1990s, the SVR was sending out women as what he called “sleeping agents” who would marry influential foreigners with the aim of establishing deep cover. They would be sent for the long term, living under their real names as “auxiliary agents” emigrating as part of the wave of Russians leaving the country in the 1990s to explore the new openings in the West. They were never fully trained-up illegal officers or “Special Agent illegals” who had been recruited as agents and they would not have false documentation. There would be only limited contact with the Center, normally through a cover address, and perhaps only once or twice a year to check up on them. They might be activated a few years down the road, depending on where they had placed themselves. In a separate case in the 2000s, the FSB carefully maneuvered a former escort, alongside a well-connected, wealthy British businessman in London. She had been carefully selected to appeal to him, not just due to her looks but also by creating a backstory that would elicit his sympathy because of her personal plight involving a child. The goal was to establish a close relationship that could then create what is called a “platform” for further FSB operations; the woman could leverage his contacts to “talent-spot” for Russian intelligence in the influential circles he moved in. In this case suspicions were aroused among some of those close to the businessman. The woman’s background was uncovered and the plan foiled.

  But Anna Chapman herself does not appear to have been a “honey trap” or sparrow. She was a trained illegal agent, the daughter of an SVR officer. The fact that many men found her attractive was simply an added bonus that offered her additional opportunities in her mission as one of the new breed of illegals. “She had a particular set of skills. And she was able to use them quite effectively. The purpose for a honey trap is a different purpose to what she was doing,” says FBI agent Derek Pieper. At the time she was blazing a trail through London though, MI5 had no idea that Chapman was operating on behalf of Russian intelligence. After all, how did you know which of the thousands of young Russian women were the dangerous ones? When Boris Berezovsky was asked about Chapman after it was later revealed she was a spy, he denied being particularly close to her. “There were many Annas in London,” he said. On one level that was true. There were many young Russian women in the city. But there was only one Anna Chapman.

  IN LATE 2006, Anna told Alex she was going back to Russia for good. The plan seemed to be for her to set up an online real estate company. But then she returned to London and now all her talk was about America. This sounded a little odd to her former husband. When they had been together she had always sounded pretty anti-American, turning her nose up at Hollywood films. She soon started making on-and-off trips over to the United States.

  At the same time as Anna was beginning to think about moving on from London in 2006, British intelligence was faced with the sudden realization that Russian espionage had not just continued but was far more dangerous than they had understood. They realized it because of one of the most extraordinarily aggressive acts in the post–Cold War era by the Kremlin—the murder of a former Russian intelligence officer in London using a radioactive poison.

  12

  The Spectre

  ALEXANDER LITVINENKO WAS a spectral presence lying in a hospital bed in Universi
ty College Hospital, London, in November 2006. Ghostly pale, he had been vomiting blood. His immune system was failing, his heartbeat irregular. When his wife, Marina, an elegant former dancer, had stroked his hair to comfort him, she stared at her hand in horror as clumps of his hair came away and now it had all been shaved off. His body was collapsing from within, but his mind was strong, and he had a story he wanted to tell. He knew he had been poisoned. But no one would believe him.

  Litvinenko had fallen ill at home in North London on the night of November 1. It had been the anniversary of his family’s arrival in the United Kingdom, so his wife had cooked his favorite chicken. But soon after going to bed he had rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Then again twenty minutes later. And again. There was foam and blood. In the early hours of the morning he told Marina he thought he had been poisoned. But when an ambulance came the next day, the medics said he was just suffering a bacterial infection and needed to drink more water. Things got worse. When another ambulance was called the next day, he was finally taken to Barnet Hospital, in the North London suburbs. When he explained he was a former KGB officer who had been poisoned, everyone thought he was crazy and they did not take much notice. For two weeks he lay there trying to convince people of his story, a story that would reveal how far Russian intelligence was willing to go under its new leader.

  Two police officers were told to go see him on November 17. Their briefing was that there was a man making some wild claims. But it was probably nothing. On their way they were told his condition had deteriorated and that he had been transferred to University College Hospital, a modern tower right in the center of London. Just after midnight, a detective inspector from the Metropolitan Police’s homicide team sat by Litvinenko’s bed on the sixteenth floor. The medical team said there was no evidence of poisoning and gave the police the impression they were just getting in the way. His situation was deteriorating and no one could understand why. Can you guarantee he will still be alive tomorrow for us to talk to him, the police officer asked them? No, was the reply. Then the interviews would begin right away, the police insisted. The two officers sat in the room while an old-fashioned tape machine recorded the conversation. There was a uniformed officer at the door but no armed guard. “I have name Alesksandr Litvinenko. I am former KGB, FSB officer,” Litvinenko explained in faltering English. That night was one the two policemen would never forget as they sat for hours listening to an extraordinary tale, like something out of a thriller.

  Litvinenko began to tell his life story. The military. The KGB. Then the FSB. Then Putin. As he spoke, he was still alert and could occasionally walk around the room, although clearly in pain. At one point he stared out of the window, admiring the view over London that the hospital room offered. He understood in a way that almost no one else did that the city in front of him was one that teemed with Russians and with spies. Litvinenko had days to think about the events leading up to his illness and now he wanted to share every detail with the police. Soon it was past two in the morning. Wasn’t he tired? You might be tired, but I’m happy to carry on, he told one of the police officers. Finally, at quarter to three they finished. The police officers were so intrigued by what they heard that at four in the morning they were standing outside a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, one of the places Litvinenko had visited and which they thought could be the site of a poisoning. It was closed but they just wanted to see it themselves. They told their superiors at Scotland Yard they had to go back to the hospital and hear more.

  At the end of one tape, the police officer asks a familiar question: “Can you think of anybody else who may wish to do this sort of harm to you?”

  “I have no doubt whatsoever that this was done by the Russian Secret Services. . . . I know the order about such a killing of a citizen of another country on its territory, especially if it had something to do with Great Britain, could have been given only by one person.”

  “Would you tell us who that person is?” asked the police officer.

  “That person is the president of the Russian Federation—Vladimir Putin.”

  When it comes to motive for why the Russian state—and even Vladimir Putin himself—wanted to kill Alexander Litvinenko, the challenge is not discovering a motive but working out which of the many possible motives is the most likely one. Alexander Litvinenko was a man who had personally confronted Putin about corruption and engaged in a bitter and personal battle with him afterward. He was a man investigating the ties of some of Putin’s closest allies to organized crime. He was a man who publicly accused the Russian security services of murdering its own citizens for political gain and who had been working closely with the Kremlin’s nemesis in exile. Much of this could be found out by those who would look into the case. But there was also another, hidden aspect to his battle with the Kremlin that would remain largely unseen.

  When he first fell ill, Litvinenko had asked Marina to bring two phones to the hospital. On one phone he made a call to another former FSB officer, named Andrei Lugovoi. Litvinenko explained he would not be able to go to Spain and meet Lugovoi there in a few weeks, as they had planned. He used the other phone to contact a man called Martin. Litvinenko did not understand that even though he was using two separate phones, those conversations were linked together in a way that would explain his fate.

  At the next hospital interview, Litvinenko’s condition was clearly worse. The pair of officers were now willing to believe that this was some kind of mysterious poisoning. They asked Litvinenko whom he met the day before he fell ill. Litvinenko recalled a meeting at 4 p.m. on October 31 in Waterstones bookstore on Piccadilly. But he would not provide the man’s name while the tape was recording. “It could be absolutely vital you tell us who that person is,” the policeman said. “You can call him and he will tell you,” Litvinenko responded. The tape was stopped. It was over two hours before it was turned on again. In that time, the man whom Litvinenko mentioned had come and gone from the hospital room. He had embraced Litvinenko when he had arrived. The pair clearly knew each other well.

  The police interview resumed with the officer asking if the person who had just been in the hospital was the man whom Litvinenko had met at Waterstones. Litvinenko said that he was. “I don’t want to ask you what you talked about with that person,” the police officer said. He understood this case had moved on to even more difficult terrain. The man had been “Martin” and he was from MI6.

  There were many unprecedented, extraordinary aspects to this case for the police, but one was that they had in front of them what they would call a “living murder victim.” A man who was dying but whom they could interview. As with any murder inquiry the key is to find the point of contact between a victim and the weapon that killed him. But rather than having to reconstruct his movements up to the point he fell ill, they could ask him to recount every minute. The fact he was a former FSB officer meant he was trained to be aware of his surroundings and of unusual behavior, so police officers found him a far better witness than most people would have been. Despite the huge pain he was clearly suffering, Litvinenko was diligent and dignified as he spoke, but still his condition was visibly deteriorating as the interviews went on. Some wondered if he was suffering from thallium poisoning, but the symptoms just did not seem right. The medical team could find no explanation. The case was close to being abandoned as no one could find evidence of deliberate poisoning.

  The other tool in a murder inquiry is a postmortem. The senior officer in charge ordered what he later described as a “living postmortem”—a battery of tests and examinations from every possible expert. But they were all coming up blank. A Geiger counter had shown no signs of radiation. A urine sample was sent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which builds the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons. The lead police investigator assembled all the scientific experts. He held up two pictures: before the poisoning there was a man looking healthy and fit, and after he was pale and emaciated. “How did he go from that to this?” asked the officer.
They went through all the possible options. Finally one person from AWE chirped up that they had found a tiny spike of polonium in a urine sample. You mean plutonium, asked the police officer? No, polonium, said the scientist. A liter of urine was needed to test properly, the scientist explained. “You are taking the piss,” said the policeman bluntly, only later realizing the irony of his words. Litvinenko had stopped eating and drinking a week earlier and was producing no urine. Fortunately, a sample had been kept from earlier and was sent off.

  What would be the last police interview came on the evening of November 20. Litvinenko was moved into intensive care that day. Wires and monitors were all around the now-hairless Russian lying there in a green hospital gown. As the interview was coming to an end, Litvinenko was asked if there was anything else he wanted to say. He had just become a British citizen a month earlier, on October 13. The ceremony was a proud moment. The same day there had been a memorial meeting for the crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had been shot dead in Russia. “I just received my citizenship, now they will not be able to touch me,” Litvinenko had told a friend that day. He thought British citizenship would protect him. He was wrong. Now on his deathbed he recounted to the police that he had taken his son to the Tower of London. “I showed him the British crown, and I told him, ‘Remember for the rest of your life this country saved us and do everything whatever you might be able to do in order to defend this country.’” The police officers found themselves increasingly attached to this unusual Russian fighting for his life.