Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Russian News Report: A Book Presentation of Elena Vavilova, Veteran KGB/SVR Illegal Intelligence Officer

Elena Vavilova (aka Tracey Foley) was a KGB/SVR illegal intelligence officer based in Canada, France, and the United States. Together with her husband Andrey Bezrukov (aka Donald Heathfield) and eight other Russian intelligence officers, she was arrested in the FBI Operation Ghost Stories in June 2010 and later exchanged in a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia.

This is a news report of Vavilova’s book presentation in Ufa, Russia published on December 8, 2019. Below is my English translation available only on this website.

The author of the book A Woman Who Can Keep Secrets and a veteran of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Elena Vavilova visited Ufa, where she met with the students of Bashkir State University and also had a meeting with her readers and those interested in the SVR activities.

The U.S. and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

“For Russia, the United States is the main enemy” said Elena Vavilova during her presentation to both students and faculty at Bashkir State University amphitheater [in Ufa]. A veteran of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service was exposed in 2010 after more than 20 years of illegal intelligence work in the U.S. under the name of Tracy Lee Ann Foley as a result of the betrayal of one of the supervisors of the illegal intelligence network. She also stated her opinion as to why the spy exchange took place. Together with other Russian illegal intelligence officers, she was exchanged for 4 [imprisoned] Russian citizens, including the scientist Igor Sutyagin and the former GRU colonel Sergey Skripal. Elena Vavilova said that, in her opinion, the United States wanted to help out Dmitry Medvedev so that he would remain the president of Russia as long as possible.

- We still feel a great deal of gratitude to our government and to Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] personally who took part in all of this, as we found out later, even though Medvedev was the president then. By the way, there is a view that the Americans let us go so easily, because they wanted to help out Medvedev, they wanted him to stay and be the president longer, [because] in their opinion, he was more pliable. And I think this is exactly what happened. As they say - to be in the right place at the right time - she explained.

According to Elena Vavilova, the U.S. is in a difficult internal political situation. “It could even come to a civil war — it’s so complicated,” she said.

- The Americans tried to be a global hegemon, as expressed in the phrase “unipolar world,” but that did not happen. The world is multipolar, you see that the different centers are forming - Asia, for example. And Europe is, I think, going down. In this context, of course, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin seems like a much more influential politician in terms of his understanding of events, his charisma. The Americans are generally in a difficult situation, now there is a great division [in the country]. There are even fears that there might be a civil war between Republicans and Democrats. Because the animosity is completely out in the open and is already beyond the scope of the rational. The impeachment of the president, the Russian threat - all this, it seems to me, has been elevated to the level of absurdity. Although Trump is seen as an influential figure, too, she said.

The Secrets Nobody Believed In

Although her activities in the U.S. are classified “top secret,” Elena Vavilova nevertheless revealed two secrets that she passed on to the Russian intelligence headquarters during her work as an illegal.

- There was one woman who was a member of the Democratic Party, she was very well-informed about everything. Long before the election of Barack Obama as president, she said that there was such a person, a candidate, he was then a Senator, and that he was quite influential in the party and that he was likely to be a presidential candidate. We naturally reported this to the Center and when we arrived - and we sometimes went on vacation, on small business trips through several countries, using different [identity] documents, to travel to Russia, because even after 20 years you have to be careful and can’t return just like that. When we discussed this information, not one of our superiors believed us, they said: “Are you crazy? How can a black man, an African become president of the United States? That’s impossible.” That is, they completely dismissed our information. And they told us to be more attentive [next time] before sending our reports. This is an example that any information can be obtained, but that the key issue is to know how to use it in a correct way. The same thing happened with Ukraine. I think that we were not alone, but that other [Russian] intelligence officers as well, and not only intelligence officers, expected that the [violent] events could take place in Ukraine. In general, the Americans worked on this in the post-Soviet space very actively - she said.

The Children

What happened in 2010 was for the two sons of Elena Vavilova and her husband Andrey Bezrukov (also an illegal intelligence officer, his cover name was Donald Howard Heathfield), Tim and Alex, a complete shock. According to Vavilova, their children at first thought that the FBI had made a mistake, that they would soon realize that, and that everything would go back to what it was before. Moreover, that ill-fated day was the birthday of one of the sons, and the other had just returned from a trip.

Elena Vavilova recalled that after seeing her sons at one of the court hearings, she told them to go to Russia, to Moscow, and that their father and mother’s friends would help them out. That is what the children did. And, after the exchange took place, the whole family lived in a safe house together. At this time, Tim and Alex are working in the financial sector - she said.

The Book

The first book of Elena Vavilova A Woman Who Can Keep Secrets has been a success. The print run was 11 thousand copies. The book’s plot is largely based on real events. Reflecting on it, Vavilova is confident that she managed to convey the heroine’s personal feelings as sincerely as possible. At this time, Elena Vavilova is working on her second book, which, she hopes, will be no less interesting and liked by her readers.