Sometimes the good guys win.
A colonel in Russia's SVR, the foreign intelligence service, helped the United States expose the spy ring that was part of July's spy swap, the biggest since the Cold War, according to a leading Russian newspaper.
The long-time SVR officer, a Col. Shcherbakov, was head of the U.S. section in charge of planting moles in the United States, Kommersant reported.
He fled to the United States three days before President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Washington in June.
"After this, the Americans, afraid that we might suspect betrayal and would start pulling out Russian illegals from the U.S., started to arrest them," an intelligence source told Kommersant. "This put the White House into a very awkward position as no one wanted to complicate Medvedev's first visit to the States."
Russian Spy Master Helped Expose Spy Ring in U.S.