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“Treason is the biggest crime on Earth, and traitors must be punished,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with Financial Times in June 2019, commenting on the poisoning of a former GRU officer and double agent who spied for Western intelligence Sergei Skripal and his daughter. “I am not saying that it’s necessary to punish in [the] way that was done in Salisbury, added Putin, “not at all. But, nevertheless, traitors must be punished.”
Last week, before the airwaves got hit with the whirlwind of bizarre reports of a failed coup in Russia, news broke out about another failed Russian plot, taking place in 2020. The Russians ran a clandestine operation to kill a high-ranking Russian intelligence official, Aleksandr Poteyev, who was living in Miami, Florida, under the protection by the U.S. government as part of a highly secretive program that is designed to keep former spies safe. Poteyev defected here, having given up…