Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells & the Hunt for Putins Agents

(Paperback)

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The urgent, explosive story of Russias espionage efforts against the West from the Cold War to the present including their interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Like a scene from a le Carre novel or the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010 a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people, including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly, it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing evidence of Russian interference in American life.

In this meticulously researched and gripping, novelistic narrative, Gordon Corera uncovers the story of how Cold War spying has evolved and indeed, is still very much with us.

Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about todays spiesas well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.

Reviews

REVIEWS FOR RUSSIANS AMONG US

This [is a] superb study of the illegals system In the West it was erroneously assumed that the illegals programme ended with the Cold War, but as Corera proves it was ramped up and modernised by Putin for the 21st century Alexander Poteyev was a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who rose to become deputy head of Directorate S. His story, told here for the first time, is an extraordinary one Corera tells this astonishing tale with deft authority, placing it in the wider context of Russian intelligence strategy. Few are better versed in the intricacies of the continuing spy war between East and West. Ben Macintyre, The Times

Extremely readable A lively and disturbing account of the extraordinary events that led to, and the terrible ones that followed, the Vienna spy swap in 2010, an episode perhaps best remembered in the West for Anna Chapman, the strikingly beautiful socialite who turned out to be a Russian spy. Telegraph

A lively and engrossing account of the FBIs decade-long counterintelligence operation Corera correctly notes that the US and UK were slow to appreciate Russias malign intent once Putin became president Offers a persuasive account of how Moscow had adapted its espionage toolkit A compelling book that combines good storytelling with subtle understanding of spy methods old and new
Luke Harding, Observer

Author Bio

Gordon Corera is a journalist and writer on intelligence and security issues. Since 2004 he has been a Security Correspondent for BBC News where he covers terrorism, cyber security, the work of intelligence agencies and other national security issues for BBC TV, Radio and Online. He has reported from across the United States, Asia, Africa and the Middle East and presented a number of programmes focusing on intelligence agencies including MI6, MI5, GCHQ, the CIA, NSA and Mossad. He is the author of Intercept The Secret History of Computers and Spies, MI6 Life and Death in the British Secret Service and Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network.