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Sleeper agents' children discover Russian identity mid-flight amid prisoner swap — Kremlin

"The children of the sleeper agents asked their parents yesterday who greeted them, they didn't even know who Putin was," Dmitry Peskov noted

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/. The children of Russian sleeper agents who returned to their homeland as a result of the recent prisoner swap only learned on the plane that they were Russian, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"The children of the sleeper agents who flew in yesterday learned that they were Russian only when the plane took off from Ankara," the Kremlin spokesman said. "When the children came down the airplane ramp - they don't speak Russian - Putin greeted them in Spanish, he said ‘Buenas noches’ (Spanish for 'good evening' - TASS)," Peskov pointed out.

"The children of the sleeper agents asked their parents yesterday who greeted them, they didn't even know who Putin was," the spokesman added. "But this is how sleeper agents work. These are the kinds of sacrifices they have to make in their line of work, for the sake of their country," he emphasized.

"The sleeper agents were in prison," Peskov said. "They were deprived of the opportunity to see their children the whole time," he pointed out. Although Anna Dultseva and husband Artyom Dultsev had already served their time in Slovenia for espionage, the two felt that they could not stay in the country. "There was a real threat that if they stayed there, their parental rights would be terminated," the Kremlin spokesman stressed.

The couple arrived in Slovenia on Argentinian passports in 2017. There, they created a company in the IT sphere and an online gallery. After the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine in 2022, intelligence from an unspecified country recommended that Ljubljana look into the family. The couple was arrested and their two children, a boy and a girl, were placed in foster care. Investigators believed them to be deep cover agents of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. The couple pleaded guilty. On July 31, 2024, a court in Ljubljana sentenced them to a year and seven months in prison for espionage (they were credited with time served while in custody, covering the entirety of this sentence).

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