Russia fired officials who allowed a former Kremlin employee and alleged CIA informant to flee the country, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday.
U.S. media reports, confirmed to Reuters by two sources, have said a CIA informant in the Russian government was extracted and brought to the United States in 2017.
Russian daily newspaper Kommersant has said that the official may have been a man called Oleg Smolenkov, who disappeared with his wife, Antonina, and three children while on holiday in Montenegro in June 2017. Kommersant showed a picture of a house it said was later bought by a family with the same names in Stafford, Virginia, 40 miles (65 km) from Washington.
The Kremlin has confirmed that Smolenkov worked in the Russian presidential administration, but said he was fired in 2016/17 and that he was not senior. A 2014 phone directory seen by Reuters lists him as chief adviser to Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide.
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