At the center of the Russian spy ring rounded up this week by federal agents were two Russian handlers from Moscow's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the successor to the KGB, who managed a network of sleeper agents out of their upper East Side Manhattan offices at the Russian mission to the United Nations.
Described in court documents simply as Russian Government Official #2 and Russian Government Official #3, the two intelligence agents, posing as low level-Russian diplomats, passed on hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and maintained secret communications with Russian "illegals" -- spies operating outside the protection of official cover -- sent to America to influence U.S. policymakers and send intelligence reports back to headquarters.
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