According to an official quoted in a Russian newspaper, the Kremlin has likely sent an assassin to kill Colonel Shcherbakov, the man who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies living in the U.S. Wait, what year is this again?
An unnamed, high-ranking government official suggested to Moscow's Kommersant paper that a "Mercader" had been sent after Shcherbakov, apparently referring to Ramón Mercader, the Spanish communist who assassinated Leon Trotsky in 1940. When asked about the Kommersant report, a spokesperson for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service said "We have no comment on this and will not have any." C'mon, guys, you could at least say there wasn't an assassin out looking for the guy.
Shcherbakov had been the head of Russia's spying operations in the U.S. and was relocated from Russia to the United States just days before F.B.I. agents arrested the purported deep cover spies. Speaking to the Kommersant, the unnamed official explained "the fate of such a person is unenviable. All his life he will drag this with him, living every day in fear of retribution." A strange saga indeed. [Reuters, Guardian]