Russia expelled a US diplomat on Tuesday after saying he had been caught red-handed with disguises, special equipment and wads of cash as he tried to recruit a Russian intelligence agent to work for the CIA.
US Embassy Third Secretary Ryan Fogle was apparently detained in an incongruous-looking blond wig.
The announcement came at an awkward time for Washington and Moscow as they try to improve relations and bring the warring sides in Syria together for an international peace conference. Nevertheless, there was little sign that either country wanted to escalate the affair beyond a minimum response.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Michael McFaul to discuss the case on Wednesday and released a statement ordering Fogle to leave Russia.
“Such provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War will by no means promote the strengthening of mutual trust,” it said.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell suggested the episode was unlikely to affect broader US-Russian relations or plans for the Syria conference.
“I’m not sure I would read too much into one incident one way or another,” Ventrell said. He confirmed that an embassy officer had been briefly detained, but declined further comment.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Fogle had been detained overnight carrying “special technical equipment”, a disguise, a large sum of money and instructions for recruiting his target.
Russian television showed grainy footage of a man identified as Fogle, in a blond wig, being arrested and pinned to the ground.
A photo published by the state-run Russia Today channel on its website showed two wigs, apparently found on him, as well as three pairs of glasses, a torch, a mobile phone and a compass.
Also displayed was a wad of 500-euro ($650) notes and a letter printed in Russian and addressed to a “Dear friend”. “This is an advance from someone who has been highly impressed by your professionalism, and who would highly value your cooperation in the future,” the letter said. It offered an initial payment of $100,000, and $1m a year for long-term cooperation, plus possible bonuses for useful information.
The FSB, a successor to the Soviet KGB, said Fogle worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and that he had been handed over to embassy officials at some point after his detention.
RT footage showed a Russian official haranguing Fogle, a senior US embassy official and two others in an FSB office. The speaker says Fogle twice called his target - an officer involved in counterterrorism in the restive North Caucasus - and proposed that he spy for the United States.
McFaul, frequently been criticised by Russian media for his critical views on Russia, was holding a question-and-answer session on Twitter as the detention was announced, but refused to take questions on the matter.
More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, spying - and spy scandals - are still far from unusual.
The last significant one was in 2010, when 10 Russian agents including Anna Chapman were arrested in the United States and later deported in exchange for four Russians imprisoned on charges of spying for the West.
US-Russian relations had thawed markedly under Obama’s first-term “reset” of ties, but have chilled again since Putin, himself a former KGB spy, returned to the presidency a year ago.
Putin has accused the United States of encouraging protests against him, and Russia has rejected the US Agency for International Development and curbed US-supported NGOs in moves it says are aimed at preventing foreign meddling.
