Alleged US spy extracted by CIA worked in Kremlin, Putin spokesman confirms

Suspected spy Oleg Smolenkov worked in Vladimir Putin's administration until he was 'fired by an internal order a few years ago'
Suspected spy Oleg Smolenkov worked in Vladimir Putin's administration until he was 'fired by an internal order a few years ago' Credit: Vladimir Smirnov/TASS via Getty

Vladimir Putin's spokesman has confirmed that an alleged American spy worked in the Kremlin but claimed that he didn't have access to the Russian president.

The story has raised questions about Donald Trump's handling of secrets as well as Russia's counter-intelligence operations.

CNN quoted sources on Monday saying the CIA had extracted one of its highest-level covert sources in the Russian government in 2017 over fears Mr Trump's carelessness with classified intelligence could expose the agent. 

Online investigators soon found a 2017 Russian media report that Oleg Smolenkov, identified as an employee of Mr Putin's managerial affairs department, had gone missing with his wife Antonina and three children in the Balkan country of Montenegro in June of that year. 

“Antonina Smolenkova” and “Oleg Smokenkov,” apparently a typo, bought a six-bedroom home near Washington DC in 2018.

If Mr Smolenkov was indeed the US agent in question, the Russian authorities appeared to have been blindsided by his exfiltration, as they began investigating whether he and his family had been murdered in Montenegro. 

Although the managerial affairs department said that it had not employed the man, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday that Mr Smolenkov had worked in the presidential administration before he was “fired by an internal order a few years ago”.

Asked if Mr Smolenkov had attended meetings with Mr Putin, the spokesman said “this position doesn't include any such contacts with the president” and said he did not know if the former employee had been a CIA agent. He said there were no problems with the work of Russian counter-intelligence. 

“All the reasoning by the American media about who urgently extracted whom and who saved whom and so forth is in the genre of pulp fiction,” he said. 

Other reports said, however, that the “super-mole” had worked on foreign affairs and was close with top officials including presidential aide Yury Ushakov, Mr Putin's point man on relations with the United States. An archived copy of the Russian embassy web page showed that he had worked in Washington DC during the decade that Mr Ushakov was ambassador there.

Mr Smolenkov worked at the Washington embassy with future presidential aide Yury Ushakov, seen here on the far left during Mr Putin's meeting with Kim Jong-un
Mr Smolenkov worked at the Washington embassy with future presidential aide Yury Ushakov, seen here on the far left during Mr Putin's meeting with Kim Jong-un Credit: Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik viaReuters

Mr Smolenkov was responsible for buying service cars and goods for the embassy store before moving back to Moscow with Mr Ushakov in 2008, state media quoted a former colleague as saying.

A man born in 1969 with the same name and patronymic as Mr Smolenkov insured a Volvo luxury sedan in Moscow at some time between 2007 and 2008 and a Toyota Land Cruiser in 2013, according to records found by the Telegraph.

A diplomatic source in Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper compared Mr Smolenkov to a lackey character in the Alexander Griboyedov play Of Woe from Wit but said his work helping to organise Washington visits for high-level Russian officials — even taking them shopping for brand-name clothes — would have given him good contacts. 

Andrei Soldatov, author of several books about Russian intelligence, said the American spy revelations were a big blow to the presidential administration, which has become so central to decision-making that its employees end up handling sensitive information on almost all major foreign and domestic affairs. 

“It places these people in the centre of everything which is going on, from hackers to Donbass (in eastern Ukraine) to security,” he told the Telegraph. 

Recruited years before landing a Kremlin position, the spy gave intelligence leading the CIA to conclude that Mr Putin wanted Mr Trump to win the presidency and ordered the campaign to interfere in the 2016 election, including the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, according to sources of the New York Times.

A CNN source said the CIA “renewed earlier discussions” to exfiltrate the agent after Mr Trump shocked the intelligence community by revealing classified counter-terrorism information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador at a White House meeting in may 2017.

The CIA, White House and current and former officials have denied that Mr Trump's disclosure prompted the decision to bring the agent to safety.

It may have been motivated over concerns that the Russians would be looking for the source of the intelligence behind US spy agencies' statements that only Russia's highest officials could have authorised the hacking of emails from the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, sources told The Washington Post. 

Russian intelligence has been accused of assassination attempts in the UK including the poisoning British mole Sergei Skripal in 2018 and defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

Montenegro joined Nato in June 2017 but remained a popular seaside getaway for Russians, which would make it a prime choice for a US exfiltration operation.

Moscow has been cracking down on officials holidaying overseas in recent years, this summer banning police officers with access to state secrets from travelling abroad. But no such ban is known to exist for presidential administration employees. 

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