Biggest US, Russia spy swap since Cold War
Russia and the United States conducted the biggest spy swap since the Cold War on Friday, trading agents on the Vienna airport tarmac in an evocative climax to an espionage drama that had threatened improving ties.
Two jets — one Russian, one American — parked side by side for around 90 minutes as vehicles shuttled between them. The agents changed places under the cover of airplane gangways as waves of heat rose from the blistering blacktop.
The Russian plane then took off, followed by the US jet in an echo of Soviet-era spy trades across the Iron Curtain in central Europe. Officials in Vienna, once a centre of Cold War cloak-and-dagger intrigue, maintained a strict news blackout.
The US justice department announced shortly after the takeoff that the exchange of 10 agents released by Washington and four freed by Moscow had been successfully completed. The jet landed at Domodedovo airport outside Moscow a few hours later, and a car pulled up at the foot of the gangway. The dramatic conclusion to the espionage scandal which has gripped America came after spymasters brokered the deal on the instructions of Presidents keen not to derail a series of important diplomatic breakthroughs in US-Russian relations. —Reuters
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