Deep Cover Cold War Spies: How Russia’s Illegal Agents Penetrated the West

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​In 2010, two decades after the Cold War had ended, ten Russian spies were arrested in America, having hidden their true identities from their friends, neighbours and even their children.

They were part of a spy programme that had begun nearly a century earlier, when the revolutionary Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants and students.

These deep-cover missions – some remarkable feats of espionage, others high-profile failures – could last for decades.

Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews, as well as newly discovered archival material, I speak with author Shaun Walker who brings this history to life in The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West, a page-turning tour de force that goes to the heart of what became the most ambitious espionage programme in history.

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