Spies, Whistleblowers, and Dissidents Just recently an engineer that was involved in the development of an advanced Russian bomber named the White Swan, has offered to tell us its secrets in exchange for asylum for himself and family. The plane is said to be the most advanced of all the bombers in the Russian fleet. The engineer had worked for the Tupolev aircraft company, who designated the bomber as the Tu-160. The man showed up at our southern border and made the asylum request and explained what he had. It is interesting to note he was not on foot, but in an armored SUV with his family. He was very worried for himself and family because they had previously supported Alexei Navalny an opposition political leader who was eventually poisoned and survived. He had been on a suspended sentence which was reversed in 2021 when he released a documentary accusing Putin of corruption. A trial described as a sham trial was conducted and another 9 years added to his sentence of 2.5 years. No wonder why the engineer was worried. A couple of years ago a Chinese man turned himself into the government of Australia. He said he had been a Chinese spy and was offering to tell the Australians about operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia. His name is Wang Liqiang. He said he was personally involved in espionage. The Chinese of course deny this man was a spy for them and call him an unemployed fugitive who was convicted of fraud while living in Shanghai. A Chinese dissident was given sanctuary in the American Embassy. He found out the Chinese government had threatened his wife and it was said she was tied to a chair for two days. The dissident was Chen Guangcheng and was blind. He left the embassy supposedly to protect his family. As far as we know, the Chinese reunited him with his wife and family in Shandong and were keeping hands off of them, but that was over 11 years ago. It is said Mr. Guangcheng was a civil right activist. This sounds very odd to me. Who would want to seek asylum in a country which had formerly convicted them of spying? Artern Zinchenko would that’s who. Mr. Zinchenko was traded to Russia on a prisoner exchange and everyone thought that was the end of that, but four years later he returned to the country that convicted him, Estonia, and asked for asylum. When he was interviewed by a newspaper who asked why he was doing this, he replied he disagreed with the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia. From October 2021 to January 2022, 6,500 Russians asked for asylum at our border. Spying is an ancient industry. Every country has their spies. They spy on enemies and allies alike, which is something many may not realize. Spying has been going on since the first time a caveman was sent into a rival group to spy and report back. Today it has become very sophisticated and employes many different gadgets. There is digital spying and human spying. Some spies are forced into the trade by threatening their families back in the homeland they came from, but most probably think they are helping their country. In 1961 the most famous ballet dancer in Russia and probably the world was with Soviet embassy guards at the airport, and managed to escape and ask for asylum in France. His name was Rudolf Nureyev. The Soviets tried to cover this up, when they landed at London by claiming he went back to Russia because his mother was sick. This excuse didn’t last long. At the time this was a huge black eye for the Russians. Another famous asylum request was from an American to Russia. Edward Snowden, who was employed by the NSA stole copious amounts of secret information and flew to Russia. He was stuck at the airport there for over three weeks while the Russians decided whether or not to honor his request for asylum. Putin offered him asylum and a famous female Russian spy asked him to marry her, according to one story. A story ran in the Jerusalem Post about an Iranian seeking asylum. The paper cited an unwritten law in Iran which forbade any Iranian athletes from competing with Israeli athletes. The Iranian was a Judo expert who apparently wanted to compete in world tournaments. He requested asylum in Germany. A court in Canada made a ruling stating if someone seeking asylum in Canada is a spy their request cannot be rejected out of hand. The ruling came about because of the case of former Ethiopian Intelligence agent Medhanie Aregawi Weldemariam. In 2017 he sought asylum in Canada. He said he could not go back to Ethiopia because he faced persecution by Ethiopian security forces. His request was denied because he had worked as a software developer for an Ethiopian state cybersecurity and intelligence agency. It was said his duties included cyberespionage on some of Canada’s allies. He was issued a deportation order. The court quashed the order and rendered its decision. It seems what might have being said is if he didn’t spy on Canada, you have to consider the application, no matter who else he spied on. One of the most famous spy assination cases took place in London. Sergei Skripal had been a Russian spy who turned over a list of agents to the British. He had moved to England and was there for years. In 2018 his daughter Yulia Skripal and Sergei were found unconscious on a park bench and rushed to a hospital. They had been poisoned with a deadly nerve agent. The Russians denied the act, but the English found three Russians who they believed were responsible, and who had fictitious names and worked as spies for Russia. The Russian diplomats were expelled from Great Britain and many other countries over the incident. The Skripals survived but were said to have still suffered some effects from the incident. They had their identities changed and were said to have moved to New Zealand. Sometimes spies were used for domestic problems. An example of this is a spy, code named Stakeknife. This spy was sent to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army. It is said by many this spy was a double agent. Police have been using this tactic for many years. They send a spy to infiltrate a gang or group of criminals. You can bet if there is a large criminal organization somewhere, there is probably a police organization trying to infiltrate it.
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