Children of Russian spies sent home

A Vision Airlines jet approaches Dulles International Airport July 9, 2010 in Chantilly, Virginia. The plane is reportedly carrying a number of Russians convicted of spying for the West, who were traded in Vienna this morning for 10 convicted Russian sleeper agents apprehended in the U.S. Photo/AFP

MOSCOW, Sunday

All the children of the 10 Russian spies freed in a dramatic swap with Moscow have been sent to Russia to rejoin their parents, US attorney-general Eric Holder said today.

“The children have all been repatriated. We did so consistent with what their parents’ wishes were,” Mr Holder told CBS “Face The Nation.”

The 10 Russian agents who had been under FBI investigation for a decade were exchanged for four people accused of spying for Western intelligence agencies by Moscow in a dramatic Cold War-style swap on Friday in Vienna.

Mr Holder did not give any figures for how many children were involved, but press reports said the 10 agents, some who were married to each other, could have had as many as seven children between them.

Mr Holder confirmed that some of the children were US citizens by the fact they were born in the United States, but said their parents wanted them in Russia.

“To the extent that they had the ability to make choices, they were old enough to make them, they made their decisions and they’ve gone back with their parents,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russia virtually imposed a news blackout yesterday on questions linked to the 10 spies brought back from the United States in the biggest spy swap between the superpowers since the Cold War.

On Friday, the Kremlin brought its 10 agents home who were swiftly loaded into two minivans and whisked from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in an unknown direction.

The country’s three main news agencies did not report on the whereabouts and fate of the ten spies.

Although several television channels mentioned the spy story, they zeroed in on the four Russians convicted of spying for the West and taken out of Russia in exchange for the Kremlin agents.

Citing British and US media, Russian television said the spies were welcomed with open arms in the West.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper disparagingly said the departure of arms expert Igor Sutyagin, one of the four released Russians, was a major blow for human rights groups who it said had always defended a spy.

“We still do not comment on these events,” a spokesman for Russia’s foreign intelligence service SVR told AFP.

He refused to react to a report in Russia’s online newspaper gazeta.ru that a motorcade of three cars had taken the agents to the Moscow-based SVR headquarters as soon as they arrived.

The emergency situations ministry, whose plane carried them, also declined comment. “We do not involve ourselves with shipping operations,” a ministry spokesman said curtly.

The country’s top sensationalist website lifenews.ru said that at least one of the 10 agents — the 28-year old red-head Anna Chapman who fascinated tabloids around the world — had contacted her family upon arrival.

“Ania called her sister from the Domodedovo airport and said a few words: ‘Everything is fine, we’ve landed,’” the report quoted an unidentified family friend as saying. The spy scandal caused a diplomatic storm, overnight becoming a major media sensation that had threatened to derail improving ties between Russia and the United States.

The two countries swapped the spies at Vienna airport. (AFP)