Russian spy swap: A Checkpoint Charlie for the 21st century century

IT is an arcane dance they last performed decades ago, but after rotating in unison without injury or upset, it became clear neither partner had lost their mastery of the Viennese Waltz.

In scenes reminiscent of the Cold War, the US and Russia yesterday orchestrated the first spy swap in nearly a quarter of a century. In a nervy tryst lasting close to an hour and a half, the two superpowers exchanged 14 spies on the neutral ground of Austria.

Two planes - one from New York and the other from Moscow - touched down on the tarmac of Vienna's airport within minutes of each other, before repairing to a remote stretch of runway.

Parking nose to tail in bright sunlight, the US Vision Airlines Boeing 767-200 and the Russian Emergencies Ministry Yakovlvev Yak-42 began their tentative exchange.

With the aircraft stairs of each vehicle covered to thwart onlooking media, ten Russian agents deported from the US made their way on to the Russian plane via bus, while four men convicted of spying for either the US or Britain - including a former Russian colonel convicted of spying for MI6 - went in the opposite direction. The deal done, the Russian-flagged craft took off into clear blue skies around 11.40am, closely followed by that of its old enemy.

After days of silence amid speculation that such a deal was imminent, authorities in Washington confirmed the completion of the terse diplomatic act. By early afternoon, the Russian flight had arrived back at Domodedovo airport outside Moscow. Shielded from cameras, the passengers stepped off the plane and were whisked away in a convoy of SUVs, sedans and small buses.

Meanwhile, the US jet touched down at RAF Brize Norton airfield in Oxfordshire at around 2pm.

From KGB, to intelligence colonels, to a nuclear expert - the four men who were swapped

THE four men released by Moscow yesterday in exchange for the 10 US defendants are all Russian nationals.

Some have espionage links going back the height of the Cold War, while others have always maintained their innocence.

Igor Sutyagin, an arms analyst and nuclear specialist, was reportedly transferred from captivity in the Arctic hinterlands to a Moscow prison before being put on the plane to Vienna. He was arrested 11 years ago in his home town of Obninsk in central Russia and charged with treason. Russian authorities suspected him of passing information about submarine and missile systems to a British firm that is allegedly used as a front by the CIA.

Sutyagin's original trial broke down, but he was imprisoned for 15 years in 2004, and looked set to serve his sentence in the remote Arkhangelsk region, close to the Arctic Circle, until yesterday's dramatic prisoner swap. He has always maintained his innocence.

Sergei Skripal is a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, convicted of spying for Britain in 2006. He was sentenced to 13 years for passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working in Europe to MI6. Prosecutors claimed he had been paid $100,000 by MI6 for his work, which it is alleged goes as far back as the 1990s.

Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, was convicted of espionage seven years ago, and sentenced to 18 years' hard labour.

Zaporozhsky worked for a US firm in Maryland after his retirement in 1997, but was arrested on a trip to Moscow in 2001, and accused of revealing the identities of more than 20 Russian agents based in the United States.

Gennady Vasilenko is understood to be a former KGB officer who served with the agency in the 1970s, working as a spy in Washington.

While employed as a security officer with Russia's NTV television station, he was arrested in 2005. One US official, who did not wish to be named, said only two of the four made the onward journey across the Atlantic.

The swap was among the largest since the Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky - who as Natan Sharansky became a political figure in Israel - was released along with eight imprisoned spies in a classic Cold War exchange in a wintry Berlin 24 years ago.

It remains to be seen whether some of those individuals released by Russia will remain on British soil, but the US and Russia hope yesterday's actions will bring to an end an espionage scandal that has gripped US society with its details of invisible ink and femmes fatale, yet threatened to jeopardise international relations between the two countries.

The carefully choreographed swap began on Thursday, when the 10 Russian sleeper agents - the most famous among them being redhead Anna Chapman, who may now be stripped of her British citizenship - pleaded guilty to a New York court to charges against them. The group were sentenced to time served, which amounted to just 11 days.

Despite the fact they could have faced five years in prison, their true sentence came in the form of immediate deportation from the nation many of them had come to call home.

Soon afterwards - following discussions between CIA director Leon Panett and Mikhail Fradkov, head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree pardoning four Russian men serving lengthy prison terms for spying against their homeland. They included Sergei Skripal, jailed for passing state secrets to Britain.

By the end of play on Monday, US officials had met in Russia with the convicted spies and offered them a chance for freedom, while Russian officials held similar meetings with those agents captured by the FBI.

After yesterday's handover was concluded, the clandestine discussions gave way to official confirmation. "The exchange of these individuals ... has been completed," said Dean Boyd of the US Justice Department .

Authorities in Britain, however, declined to comment on the significance of the US jet landing at an RAF base.

"Civilian aircraft routinely use military airfields under long-standing arrangements set by the MoD," said a Ministry of Defence spokesman. The Foreign Office, meanwhile, refused to comment on suggestions that two of the Russians were being kept in the UK.

Russia's Foreign Ministry pointed to the desire for a good diplomatic relationship which lay behind the deal. The swap, it explained, "gives reason to expect that the course agreed on by the leaders of Russia and the US will be consistently implemented in practice and that attempts to knock the parties off this course will not succeed."

Yet what appears to be the final chapter of a saga worthy of a spy novel may not be over.

Christopher Metsos, an 11th suspect of the deep-cover espionage ring uncovered in the US, remains at large, having skipped bail following his arrest in Cyprus. The alleged ringleader of the operation, it remains to be seen whether US officials have the political appetite to pursue Metsos in light of yesterday's developments.

Meanwhile, debate is likely to rage over which side came out best from the spy swap. While Russia has welcomed back the most agents, they are relatively low-level "illegal" operatives who have been widely derided for their failed mission in the US. One American official suggested there would have been "no significant national security benefits" from their continued incarceration.

Intelligence analysts have suggested Britain and US are the real beneficiaries, given the seniority of those figures released by the Kremlin - Skripal, Alexander Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin and Gennady Vasilenko - who are arms experts and seasoned Russian intelligence officers.

As one radio presenter in Moscow put it: "One of their spies is worth two and a half of ours."

Some have expressed concern that President Obama has gone too far in his attempts to maintain good relations with the Kremlin, with Peter Hoekstra, a Republican congressman, suggesting the Russians do not share his commitment.

Other onlookers, however, are simply bemused that the spy swap - that staple of the Cold War - is still taking place in the 21st century.

"It's a bit sad that everything in the world seems to end up like a blind donkey going around in circles," concluded Vladimir Bukovsky, a London-based former Soviet dissident freed in a 1976 swap.