US spy ‘was so close to Putin he could take pictures of documents on his desk’
As America’s top Moscow mole is pulled out in case blundering president exposed him...
THE US spy removed from Russia over fears he was about to be exposed was so close to the top of the Kremlin that he provided pictures of documents on Vladimir Putin’s desk.
The agent, who was extracted in 2017 over reported concerns that Donald Trump could accidentally blow his cover, had reached the highest levels of the Russian government over a decade.
He was so dedicated that he rebuffed an initial attempt to remove him, but gave in and ‘ disappeared’ while on a family holiday in Montenegro.
His vanishing act prompted an urgent murder investigation by Russian authorities that only ended when they discovered he was living in America.
NBC News reported that the spy is now living with his wife and three children in the Washington area under Secret Service protection. The Russian government yesterday acknowledged there had been a US mole in the Kremlin, but sought to downplay his role and access to senior ministers.
Russian media named him as Oleg Smolenkov, 45, who was once an adviser to Mr Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov.
There are now growing fears he could be the target of a revenge assassination plot by Russian agents.
The operation to pull out the spy was done amid grave concerns over how Trump and his officials handle topsecret information. It took place after the US President met with high-ranking Russian officials in the Oval Office in May 2017 and shared highly classified counter-terrorism information obtained from Israel.
CNN reported that intelligence officials were also worried about media reports concerning an unnamed Kremlin source who helped them determine that Putin’s regime meddled in the 2016 US presidential election.
The agent was considered the highest level source for the US inside the Kremlin. According to the Washington Post, he had such access to the very top that he could photograph documents on Putin’s desk and send them back to the CIA.
Russian news website Daily Storm reported that Mr Smolenkov previously worked as a secretary in the US embassy in Washington before returning to Moscow around a decade ago.
For his overseas service he was awarded the rank of state adviser to Russia, third class, by the then president Dmitry Medvedev – the equivalent of major general.
Extracting an agent – known as an ‘ asset’ – is usually done only when there is an imminent threat they will be exposed. While it was initially reported that Mr Smolenkov was removed over fears his cover could be inadvertently blown by an indiscreet Trump or one of his White House officials, there were also reports yesterday that his initial refusal to be extracted sparked fears he had become a double agent, meaning some of his information about the Russian election meddling would have been inaccurate.
The New York Times reported that some operatives had other reasons to fear he had turned on America, but those exact fears were not explained.
Eventually Mr Smolenkov agreed, and on June 14, 2017, he and his wife Antonina, who was on leave from her job as a civil servant, reportedly left their Moscow apartment and went to Montenegro. They travelled with their three children – daughters aged two and seven, and their son, 13.
According to Daily Storm, the teenager last visited his page on the VKontakte social media network a week after leaving, on June 21. On the same day, the page was visited by his mother.
When they disappeared, the Russian authorities began a murder inquiry because their disappearance was unexpected. But soon afterwards Mr Smolenkov was spotted in the US.
The house where Mr Smolenkov is now thought to be living was photographed on the Russian news website Kommersant, which said property records showed him and his wife living there.
Five minutes after NBC reporters knocked on the door, two men in an SUV raced up the street and pulled up next to their car. The men, who said they were friends of Mr Smolenkov, asked the reporter what he was doing.
NBC said the men were likely US Government agents monitoring the Russian’s house.
WHENMr Smolenkov returned to Moscow, he enjoyed the trust of high- ranking officials. Kommersant quoted one as saying: ‘This is serious.’
The New York Times described the spy – whether or not it is Mr Smolenkov – as ‘the American Government’s best insight into the thinking of and orders’ of Putin, and his removal is a huge blow to US intelligence.
Now he is in the US, he faces the risk of assassination.
Last year, Russian operatives used Novichok nerve gas in Salisbury to try to kill a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, who had become a British spy.
In 2006, Russian agents used radioactive poison to kill former
Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press conference that Mr Smolenkov did work for the Russian government but claimed he was a low-ranking official who was dismissed two years ago. He said the reports about his extraction were ‘pulp fiction’ and that ‘Russian counter-intelligence is working fine’.
CNN reported that Mr Trump has soured on the idea of using spies in foreign countries at all. He reportedly feels it could ‘damage’ his relationship with leaders such as Mr Putin, with whom he has an unusually friendly relationship. Furthermore, Mr Trump regards spies as ‘sellouts’ and believes they should be loyal to their country instead.
CIA spokesman Brittany Bramell said: ‘Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence – which he has access to each and every day – drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate’.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said last night that the reports were ‘not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger’.