Russian Agents Have Been Systematically Gaslighting U.S. Diplomats and Their Families

Pooping on the carpet: classic tradecraft

June 28, 2016 9:00 am

What does The Americans, a fictional spy drama set in the Cold War-era Soviet Union, have to do with contemporary U.S.-Russia political relations?

Apparently way more than we thought.

Although Elizabeth and Philip Jennings have nothing on the antics actual Russian spies have been employing to troll U.S. diplomats throughout Europe.

Read: Breaking into homes just to rearrange the furniture. Murdering the family pet. And literally pooping on all the carpets.

Those are the facts from a Washington Post story published on Monday outlining the bizarre ways Russian security forces have been harassing and strongarming U.S. diplomats in Moscow and other European capitals for years.

The report comes as “secret memos” made their way to Washington and were promptly earmarked by Post writer Josh Rogin, who detailed Russian provocations ranging from the routine (i.e., “paying reporters to write negative stories about them”) to the juvenile (i.e., “one diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet”), to the straight up W-T-F:

“The harassment is not new; in the first term of the Obama administration, Russian intelligence personnel broke into the house of the U.S. defense attaché in Moscow and killed his dog, according to multiple former officials who read the intelligence reports.”

Many see the harassment as a response to Western sanctions on Russia over the situation in Ukraine. The U.S. has reportedly asked Putin and Russia to chill out.

What’d the dog ever do to you, Vlad?

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