This is the story of the biggest spy swap between Russia and the United States since the Cold War involving Sergei Skripal, the victim of the infamous 2018 Salisbury Novichok attack. From the United States ten Russian ‘illegals’, who have, for a decade or more in some cases, masqueraded as Americans and had operated undetected by their neighbours, but not by the FBI, who have had them under surveillance for years. In the other direction are four spies who have been released from Russian jails. One of which was Sergei Skripal. Another,Gennady Vassilenko, a long-standing CIA double agent, and the man some say was involved in giving up the infamous traitor, Robert Hanssen. But what the Russians don’t know is just how valuable Gennady is to the West.
