"Zarubina attended seminars, forums and conventions also attended by prominent members of academia, foreign policy, the US government and the media. Her job was to identify potentially helpful contacts in the US and pass them on to the FSB so the agency could invite them to Russia to convert them to the Russian way of thinking."
"Zarubina pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI relating to her relationship with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, or FSB, and to naturalization fraud for lying about her involvement in prostitution-related offenses."
"Zarubina's intentional concealment of her misconduct and her lies about her affiliation with Russian intelligence were an affront to law enforcement's national security efforts."
Nomma Zarubina, a 35-year-old Russian national, pleaded guilty to charges of making false statements to the FBI and naturalization fraud. Recruited by Russia's FSB intelligence service around 2020, she operated under the code name Alyssa while living in the United States since 2016. Her mission involved attending seminars, forums, and conventions frequented by prominent American academics, policymakers, government officials, and media figures. She worked to identify and cultivate potential intelligence targets, passing contacts to the FSB for recruitment and ideological conversion. Zarubina held positions with Russian-American organizations and posed for photographs with Capitol Hill officials while concealing her espionage activities. Her arrest and guilty plea represent a modern iteration of Cold War-era intelligence tactics targeting American institutions.
#russian-intelligence-operations #fbi-investigation #espionage-and-counterintelligence #cold-war-tactics #national-security-threats
Read at www.theguardian.com
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