it's always been possible there were other triggers.  Though the
   coincidence of all these events is still weird. 

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   From: "Anya Alfano" <anya.alfano@stratfor.com>
   To: "TACTICAL" <tactical@stratfor.com>
   Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:15:35 AM
   Subject: Russian spy ring - Update - Russian double agent 'helped crack'
   US spy ring

   Filling in a few blanks of the story--if true, doesn't sound like Comrade
   J was actually a trigger, or possibly even involved at all. 

   -------- Original Message --------

    Subject: [OS] US/RUSSIA - Russian double agent 'helped crack' US spy ring 
       Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:09:16 -0600 (CST)                            
       From: Zac Colvin <zac.colvin@stratfor.com>                             
   Reply-To: The OS List <os@stratfor.com>                                    
         To: OS List <os@stratfor.com>                                        

   Kommersant not in English
   Russian double agent 'helped crack' US spy ring
   http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20101111/twl-russia-us-spy-diplomacy-7e07afd.html
   AFP - 54 minutes ago

   MOSCOW (AFP) - A-c-A*A* A Russian spy ring broken by the United States
   this summer was detected with the help of a Russian intelligence agent
   whose daughter lives in the United States, the Kommersant daily reported
   Thursday.

   The respected business daily identified the Russian accomplice as
   Shcherbakov, a colonel with the Russian foreign intelligence service.

   It said Shcherbakov fled Russia for the United States three days prior to
   Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's June visit to Washington.

   The paper cited sources as saying that Shcherbakov's son also quit his
   post with the Russian drug control agency and fled to the United States
   shortly before Washington revealed the spy ring that month.

   His daughter has long lived in the United States, the paper said, without
   providing further details.

   "It seems odd that no one bothered to check why a person of that rank has
   a daughter living in the United States," Kommersant quoted an unnamed
   intelligence source as saying.

   Shcherbakov himself turned down an important promotion last year,
   suggesting that he had already been working with Washington, the paper
   said.

   The group of 10 spies, many of whom had been working for years undercover
   in the United States as sleeper agents, returned to Russia in a July spy
   swap that saw Moscow send four Russian convicts to the West.

   Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who served as a Soviet foreign intelligence
   agent in East Germany, this summer denounced the then-unnamed Russian
   collaborator as someone whose life will end "with boozing or drugs,"
   Kommersant said.

   The Russian foreign intelligence agency was not immediately available for
   comment.

   --
   Zac Colvin

   --
   Sean Noonan
   Tactical Analyst
   Office: +1 512-279-9479
   Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
   Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
   www.stratfor.com