Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

Lewis: July 2010, and four american spies stand

On the airport tarmac.

After years of imprisonment,

They are just moments from freedom.

(dramatic music)

They are there to be traded

For 10 deep-cover russian agents,

Being sent home after a lifetime of deception in the west.

(camera clicking) (dramatic music)

On the surface, it's an old-fashioned spy swap.

In reality, it's anything but.

This is a story of loyalty, betrayal and revenge.

More than a return to the dark forces of the cold war,

It marks the beginning of a new era of global espionage,

With russia's spymaster at its heart.

(crowd applauding)

(cannon firing)

(speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

(cameras clicking) (murmuring)

Lewis: In the full glare of the media spotlight,

President obama of the united states

And president medvedev of russia put their signatures

To a new nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The white house hoped this moment would mark an end

To eight years of tension.

And always watching was the man responsible

For that tension: The former and future russian president,

Vladimir vladimirovich putin.

(camera clicking)

Leon panetta was cia director at the time.

(dramatic music)

Panetta: There was no question

That even though medvedev was president,

(camera clicking)

That putin was still the power behind the throne.

(camera clicking)

If you wanna know putin, know that he is a former kgb agent.

He will always work the angles to make sure

That russian interests are protected.

Lewis: For putin and the svr, russia's successor

To the kgb, the cold war wasn't over.

For him, a deadly spy war was in full swing.

Panetta: The reality is that there's a long history

Of russians trying to place their spies

In the united states.

The united states spend an awful lot of time trying

To determine where those spies are

And where they're located.

Lewis: And in April 2010, even as obama

And medvedev were speaking of a new era

In east-west relations, the fbi had been passed information

Of a sinister russian plot,

Which would shock america to its core.

(railroad crossing bell ringing)

The fbi's focus was on a young

And seemingly entirely ordinary american couple:

(camera clicking)

Cynthia and richard murphy of montclair, new jersey.

(camera clicking)

Liz lapin was their neighbor.

(camera clicking)

Lapin: She was very charming and fun to talk to.

She would always be outside at the weekends

With her short shorts, and doing the gardening.

He was such an enigma.

I used to wonder why is he such a strange guy?

Lewis: Cynthia murphy was the family's bread winner,

Working in the finance scene of upstate new york.

(camera clicking)

Richard murphy was a stay-at-home dad,

Looking after their two young daughters.

(camera clicking)

Lapin: And I'd see her coming home, she'd take a bus

Across the road here every day from work.

I had thought, "oh, I should talk to her about investing."

"Oh, maybe we should discuss what stocks she likes

"to invest in." (camera clicking)

Lewis: But the murphys' wholesome all-american image

Was an elaborate facade.

Frank figliuzzi went on

To become the fbi's assistant director

For counterintelligence.

(camera clicking)

Figliuzzi: Richard and cynthia murphy were a married couple,

But married only per instructions and arrangement

By the russian svr, the russian intelligence service.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: The murphys from new jersey

Were really vladimir and lydia guryev,

Trained members of russia's foreign intelligence service.

(camera clicking)

They were illegals: Deep cover agents,

Who had assumed false identities to enter the united states.

Figliuzzi: These illegals lived like you or I would live,

Except for what I call the big lie.

The big lie being that they were leading a double life,

They had another agenda.

They were not what they appeared to be.

Their children, their homes,

Their lives were mere cover positions

For their real purpose in life, which was to work

Against us interests on behalf

Of the russian intelligence service.

Lewis: The guryevs' goal was to pass themselves off

As true american patriots,

To embed themselves completely in us society.

(dramatic music)

Alexander vassiliev was a kgb operative.

Vasiliev: The idea of sending them to america was

To use them as talent spotters.

(camera clicking)

They would be joining clubs, scientific societies,

Political organizations, in order to meet interesting

And influential people and become friends with them.

And then pass information about them

To the center, to moscow.

Lewis: Such was the unique skillset of an illegal,

Each was hand-picked from the elite students

At russia's notorious spy school known as the institute.

This was an establishment run

By the mysterious directorate s of the svr,

And was attended by, among others, alexander vassiliev.

Vasiliev: I believe they select people

From the red banner institute, from the high school

Where I was a cadet in 1980s.

The school is training legal spies

Who will be working as diplomats and journalists.

They will take this person from the school

And put him on a special program.

Lewis: Agents were trained to talk, think and act,

Even subconsciously, like regular americans.

Some say muttering russian in one's sleep was grounds

For a promising recruit's dismissal.

(plane humming)

After years of training,

Vladimir and lidiya guryev were dispatched to the us

As richard and cynthia murphy. (camera clicking)

In the mid-1990s,

They befriended their new jersey neighbors,

Started a family and embarked on a life of deception.

(railroad crossing bell ringing)

Vasiliev: They are illegals,

They don't have diplomatic immunity,

They are not even journalists,

So if they get arrested, that's a big problem for them.

(railroad crossing bell ringing)

Lewis: Their cover was so deep,

They should have been impossible to detect.

Sipher: Uncovering illegals or illegals networks

Is the hardest thing a

Counterintelligence service can do.

Lewis: John sipher ran the cia's russia operations

For the national clandestine service.

Sipher: It's not the kind of thing

That our counterintelligence services

Can just stumble across.

I think when you look back over sort of the history

Of spy cases and spies that have been uncovered,

You'll find that almost in every case there's a source

On the other side that gave us information.

Lewis: In early 2000, the russian illegals

Were betrayed to the cia by an agent believed

To be high up in directorate s.

Panetta: Without getting into the details,

Which are classified,

The source was someone who was credible

And was in a position to know just exactly

What was being done in russia to try

To establish these spies here in this country.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: Although his name was not disclosed

At the time, the cia's source was later revealed

To be colonel aleksandr poteyev.

Augustyn: Poteyev, being deputy head of

Directorate s in the svr,

He had incredible access.

He knew who these people were, he knew their real names,

He knew why they were there and what they were doing.

Lewis: But what poteyev revealed

About the russian illegals program sent shockwaves

Through the agency, because the murphys of montclair,

New jersey, were not operating alone.

(dramatic music)

They were part of a deep cover spy ring

Of 10 russian agents, who over the previous decade

Had systematically infiltrated some of america's most secure

And well-to-do neighborhoods.

Figliuzzi: We saw a placement of these illegals literally

Across the continental united states,

From new jersey to boston, massachusetts,

To seattle, washington.

This was a continent-wide effort to place and penetrate,

With intelligence officers, our society.

In my 25-year career in the fbi, there was no precedent

For something of this magnitude.

(traffic humming)

Lewis: The illegals spy ring had been unearthed

By the cia, but it would be

The fbi's counterintelligence unit who'd run them to ground.

Figliuzzi: The us intelligence unit had one goal:

To disrupt the operation and to defeat the operation.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: The fbi codenamed the investigation

Operation ghost stories (camera bleeping)

And initiated round theclock surveillance

On suspects across the continental united states.

(camera bleeping)

Figliuzzi: The fbi coverage and penetration of each

And every one of these sleepers' homes

And lives was pervasive and comprehensive.

(dramatic music)

We literally owned these operatives,

We understood what they drank, what they ate,

What they smoked and when they did it.

(dramatic music)

Goodman: The end game for the fbi in a case like the illegals,

Is to see how far that network extends,

Who is pulling the strings, who is controlling them.

Lewis: The decade-long surveillance would become one

Of the longest running counter-espionage operations

In fbi history.

Figliuzzi: You can imagine that this involved, at some points,

Almost every field office in the fbi.

It all helped contribute to a complete total understanding

And control of the russian operation.

Lewis: What the fbi couldn't know was

That unmasking the sleeper agents

Would later inspire a deadly revenge from the kremlin.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: By now, the fbi's operation ghost stories

Was focused firmly

On the man they believed was the ringleader

Of the russian illegals:

(camera clicking)

Richard murphy, the stay-at-home dad

From montclair, new jersey.

Fbi surveillance footage revealed him engaging

In fleeting information exchanges known as brush passes

With his svr handlers.

Federal agents recorded other illegals making dead drops

Of documents and data, even hiding packages of money

In a park in arlington, virginia.

But in time the operation grew more sophisticated.

Figliuzzi: In a span of a decade we saw increasing technology

Being inserted into the operation.

So, we went from traditional brush passes and dead drops,

But then we also saw added in the tech side,

And it got higher and higher.

Lewis: The illegals sat in coffee shops

And flashed messages from their laptops

To suspicious vehicles parked outside.

Coded texts were embedded in images posted online.

Sipher: It's impressive that the fbi was able

To monitor these people as long as they did

Without jeopardizing the larger case.

Because if any of them at all during the entire years

That they're under scrutiny believe

They're under surveillance by the fbi,

It would blow the entire operation.

Lewis: Then came a red flag for the fbi.

(camera clicking)

Cynthia murphy's job in a new york accounting firm

Had given her access to influential clients.

Figliuzzi: Cynthia murphy was getting very close

To a man named alan patricof.

(camera clicking)

Alan patricof was connected to hillary clinton,

During a time when hillary clinton was considering a run

For the us presidency, and that got our attention.

Cynthia murphy's handlers back in russia

Would have been extremely interested

To learn the intentions, the strategies

Of a major us political candidate

To a degree where they might be able to influence

And shape american politics.

Lewis: It was the kind of audacious gambit

The fbi had been waiting for

In order to make their move against the illegals.

Vasiliev: The fbi idea was to watch

Whether those illegals would recruit a serious agent.

Lewis: But almost immediately,

The intelligence services received news

That threatened to close down the entire operation.

Richard murphy had just bought a ticket to moscow.

The fbi feared operation ghost stories had been blown.

(dramatic music)

Panetta: We had found out that one of the individuals

That we were surveilling was going to go back to russia.

And that raised the concern that if that happened

The russians might end their mission.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Now they had a problem.

Any attempt to round up the illegals risked exposing

The cia's moscow source, colonel aleksandr potoyev,

The man who had revealed their identities.

(dramatic music)

Panetta: It was clearly important knowing that

At some point we were gonna take action

Against these illegals, that we had to protect the source.

Lewis: The pressure was now on the cia

To get its man out of moscow before the fbi made its move

On the illegals in the us.

Augustyn: If he had been caught as a spy in russia

And he didn't have an exfiltration plan,

He would have been charged with high treason

And probably a prison sentence of 25 years, if not executed.

(gun firing)

Lewis: An exfiltration operation

Of this significance could only be authorized

By the commander-in-chief, president barack obama.

(camera clicking)

Explaining the delicacy of the situation to the president

Fell to the director of the cia, leon panetta.

Panetta: These events were beginning to all come together

At the same time.

And so it was important to brief the president.

(camera clicking)

I thought it was important to raise the concern

That if we were to take action against these illegals,

(camera clicking)

What would we do in order to protect the source

Who had provided the initial information?

(camera clicking)

Lewis: Robert gates was president obama's

Defense secretary at the time.

Gates: I remember getting a phone call from cia director,

Leon panetta, telling me that there was gonna be a meeting

At the white house and discuss what to do.

(camera clicking)

There was pretty broad unanimity about that,

That we had a responsibility to save this person.

Lewis: But for president obama

The timing could not have been worse.

(camera clicking)

Within two weeks, russian president, dmitry medvedev,

Was due to arrive in washington for a state visit.

(camera clicking)

Obama believed the spy games would jeopardize any hopes

Of a thaw in us russian relations.

(dramatic music)

Gates: He was actually angry at panetta and at the fbi director,

Bob muller, for exposing this, because he thought

This counterintelligence operation

Had thrown a monkey wrench in the works.

Panetta: We had it discussed at the meeting

About how should this be handled in a way

That would not necessarily embarrass president medvedev

Or undermine the effort to try

To establish better relations, but, at the same time,

Not allow these potential spies to get away with it.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Then there was the added complication

Of who was really in charge in the kremlin.

Gates: I had a suspicion that mevedev had no knowledge

Of this at all, (camera clicking)

That putin may well have because of his close ties

To the security service.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: The three men devised a plan.

To avoid a damaging international incident,

The timing of its implementation would have to be perfect.

Panetta: When medvedev's plane was in the air heading back

To moscow, that would be the moment

That the fbi would arrest all of the illegals.

Lewis: The cia would have until then

To get their source, colonel aleksandr poteyev,

Out of russia.

Panetta: So with without going into classified details,

It was arranged for the source to be able to find a way

To be able to leave moscow.

Lewis: The plan was, if he made it out alive,

He'd spend the rest of his life in the us

In a resettlement program.

(dramatic music)

Augustyn: Poteyev decided to leave moscow June 24th, 2010.

And he left on a train to belarus,

Using his brother's passport.

He then, I understand, went to ukraine, changed documents,

Found his way to frankfurt and he was ferried back

To the united states.

(dramatic music)

(people applauding)

Lewis: On the very same day poteyev

Was making his escape, russian president medvedev arrived

In washington do for his state visit.

Obama: Somebody's got to do it.

Lewis: Nobody mentioned the russian spy cell

In america or the source.

President obama simply acted normally

And charmed medeyev with an impromptu lunch.

Medvedev: Sir, can I assist you?

Obama: No, no, no, this one's on me.

Panetta: The president's intent by taking him

To a hamburger place was to create a better relationship

And disarm him.

Obama: All right.

Lewis: But while the two leaders dined on burgers

And fries, the fbi initiated their plan

To round up the network of russian illegals.

(dramatic music)

Their operation first targeted the weakest link

In the spy ring: Anna chapman.

(camera clicking)

Chapman was the daughter of a former kgb general.

(camera clicking)

She had arrived in manhattan in 2009,

Posing as the ceo of a real estate firm. (camera clicking)

Unlike the other illegals,

Chapman was using her real identity

And was hiding in plain sight.

Goodman: She used her british surname that she had taken

From marrying a brit some years earlier. (camera clicking)

She didn't try to hide in the shadows in the same way

That some of these illegals had.

Harding: The kgb had a tradition of using women for kind

Of espionage purposes, essentially trying to kind

Of compromise western diplomats,

All the way back to the kind of cold war. (camera clicking)

Lewis: Chapman worked her way

Into the new york social scene.

Goodman: The benefits to russian intelligence

Of someone like anna chapman is that she can blend

Into society, she doesn't go there under any form

Of diplomatic cover, any diplomatic presence,

The russians can much more easily hold up their hands

Deniably and say this is nothing to do with us.

(camera clicking)

Vasiliev: Well, anna chapman differs

From the rest of these guys

Because, in my opinion, she wasn't a professional operative.

Lewis: The fbi had been following anna chapman's

Every move.

(camera bleeping)

They knew her russian handler, codenamed roman,

Communicated on wednesdays, and never face-to-face.

(dramatic music)

Figliuzzi: She would carry her covert comm

Laptop around manhattan

On shopping excursions or to coffee shops.

She'd press a few keys on the keypad as directed

And her russian handler in a line of sight would be able

To send or receive messages back and forth with her.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: While presidents medevedev

And obama addressed the g8 conference in ontario, canada,

In new york the fbi made their move.

(dramatic music)

Chapman received an urgent message

Requesting an in person rendezvous

In an uptown new york coffee shop the next day.

Meeting face to face broke protocol, but she took the bait.

Figliuzzi: She had agreed to meet with someone

She thought was a new russian handler,

But, in fact, was an fbi undercover agent.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: The fbi needed taped evidence

Chapman was working for russian foreign intelligence.

Posing as her handler,

The fbi agent gave chapman an assignment

To pass a fake passport to another russian agent,

An assignment she promptly accepted.

And that's not all.

Figliuzzi: She handed over her malfunctioning

Covert communications laptop,

She actually asked the fbi undercover agent

If he could fix it.

(traffic humming)

Lewis: The fbi now had access to every covert communication

On chapman's computer.

But chapman realized almost immediately

That she had made a mistake and placed an urgent call

To her father in moscow.

(dramatic music)

Figliuzzi: We captured that conversation.

She told her father what she had done.

The father immediately chastised her,

Reported that conversation.

We knew we had a problem, we knew the timing was short.

Lewis: The fear was the russians

Would summon chapman back to moscow immediately.

But the fbi couldn't arrest her yet,

(camera clicking)

Because president medvedev still had a day

On north american soil at the g20 summit.

Figliuzzi: There was a real sense developing

That she could get on a plane at any time and head out

Of the country and we would lose one of our major players.

(plane humming)

Lewis:: On June the 27th, 2010,

Russian federation president dmitry medvedev's plane

Left north american airspace, bound for moscow.

At that moment, in cities and towns

All across the united states,

The fbi swooped on the illegals spy network

In a coordinated takedown.

(dramatic music)

Lapin: It was Sunday, there was a line of black cars

With new york license.

We didn't know what was happening.

The neighbor went up to the fbi and said,

"should we be worried?"

"Are we in danger?"

Lewis: A few doors up from elizabeth lapin,

Cynthia and richard murphy were led handcuffed

Into the waiting vehicles.

Lapin: I found out they were spies when my neighbor said,

"are you sitting down?"

I was shaken up.

If you had told me that martians were living next door,

I would have been less surprised

Than hearing they were russian spies.

Lewis: For the murphy's two young daughters,

The discovery that their parents were trained members

Of russia's foreign intelligence service

Was a shattering revelation.

(radio operator murmuring)

Lapin: This is the part that gives me the chills.

The children were also being fooled

In the most intimate level.

I don't know if you call it child abuse,

But we were very upset as a community.

Lewis: Simultaneously, across the us,

The eight other members of the illegals spy ring

Were arrested, including anna chapman.

Figliuzzi: There was no resistance with the arrests,

It went without incident. (camera clicking)

There was some short-feigned surprise, but, quite frankly,

In almost every case we saw a look of resignation,

A look of inevitability on the subjects' faces.

They knew some day this could happen

And they realized it was happening now.

Lewis: Now though, the us intelligence services

Faced a dilemma.

Figliuzzi: Do we notify

The russian diplomatic establishments

That we know who these people are?

Or do we pretend, for the time being,

That we've arrested americans who say

That they're americans, and so therefore we don't need

To tell their government?

Lewis: Us intelligence officials were uncertain

As to whether their russian counterparts

Would own their illegals or deny all knowledge of them.

(camera clicking)

Cia director leon panetta made the call

To his russian counterpart,

Head of the svr, mikhail fradkov.

Panetta: I said, "mikhail, you need to know"

"that we've picked up your people."

And there was a silence.

And then he said, "yes, they are ours."

(dramatic music)

Everybody in the room kind of, you know,

You could tell they were surprised

By the fact that he was acknowledging that.

Lewis: The russian's admission allowed panetta

To make a bold proposition:

To use the diplomatically delicate situation

To the advantage of both sides.

(dramatic music)

Panetta: I said, "is there a way to work out possibly some kind"

"of trade that would allow us to exchange these spies"

"for those that the russians were holding?"

(dramatic music)

Lewis: What panetta was offering harked back

To the height of the cold war: A spy swap.

Panetta: He said, "let me look into that"

He was going to have to check with higher authorities

Which we all assumed meant

That somebody had to talk to putin.

(dramatic music)

Vasiliev: Any decision concerning the special services

Couldn't be taken without putin's knowledge.

Of course, putin had to be consulted

About the swap of the agents.

Lewis: The message came back from the kremlin:

The swap was on.

And the cia now had an opportunity to extricate men

Who had sacrificed their freedom for the west.

(dramatic music)

Goodman: What it shows, I think,

Certainly for british intelligence

And for american intelligence,

Is how they look after their own.

They never forget those who will work for them,

Who will really sacrifice or be prepared

To sacrifice their lives for the cause that they believe in.

Lewis: Moscow agreed to swap four men imprisoned

For spying for the 10 russian illegals in fbi custody.

Now the cia needed to decide who they would bring back in

From the cold.

Joe augustyn ran the cia defectors unit

That paved the way for the repatriation of former agents.

(camera clicking)

Augustyn: Zaporozhsky was probably number one on our list

Of people to get back.

Zaporozhsky was a very important recruited spy

For the united states.

(camera clicking)

He helped to give up people like aldrich ames

And perhaps even robert hanssen.

(camera clicking)

Vasilenko was a kgb officer who came to washington

And developed a relationship with a cia officer,

A legendary cia officer named jack platt.

So they charged him with some bogus crimes

And he wound up in jail.

Charged with high treason was sutyagin, igor sutyagin.

(camera clicking)

He took information on nuclear submarines

And russian nuclear defense systems,

And he analyzed it and he provided it

To a uk consulting firm.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Then, in a move

That would later trigger an extraordinary sequence

Of events, the cia turned to their partners

At britain's foreign intelligence agency,

Mi6, to provide a fourth name.

Harding: Of course they said, "yeah, we've got sergei skripal,

"who did work for us, he's currently in prison"

"in a penal colony, and let's get him out."

(camera clicking)

Augustyn: Skripal was a gru officer, a colonel, recruited

By mi6 in the '90s in Spain.

He was an incredibly important asset for the uk.

He basically gave up the european operations of the gr...

(dramatic music)

Lewis: The gru was russia's feared

Military intelligence unit.

So getting skripal out of an internment camp built

For stalin's political prisoners would be a significant coup

For the west.

The four men knew nothing

Of the cia's plans to extricate them.

Now, without explanation, each were transported

To the infamous lefortovo prison in moscow.

Panetta: These individuals were totally blindsided,

They'd been in prison for a long period of time,

Some of them sure thought they would be there

For the rest of their lives.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: President medvedev had agreed to the men's release.

Prime minister vladimir putin had added a condition

Of his own: Before the men could be released,

A confession of their treachery would need

To be extracted from each of them, by any means necessary.

(dramatic music)

In the first week of July 2010,

Sergei skripal was visited

By a man claiming to be from the cia.

He had with him a presidential pardon,

With notification of skripal's release.

Goodman: Skripal thought it was a great russian ruse to get him

To own up to what he'd actually done.

He had never admitted to being an mi6 spy.

So when he was presented with a document saying you're about

To be released, you're about to be flown

To the united kingdom, just sign here

And confirm that you've been a russian spy all along,

He was unsurprisingly very, very skeptical.

Lewis: Skeptical or not,

Skripal did what was necessary.

(dramatic music)

At cia headquarters, director leon panetta

Chose a theatrical location

For the biggest east-west spy swap since the cold war.

Panetta: We decided that vienna

Would be probably an appropriate place to do this,

Based on a lot of old spy movies.

Harding: I mean, it was a bit like going through a wormhole,

About 50 years, to the early 1950s, and you had

To pinch yourself and say, "actually, no, this is 2010."

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Just 13 days after the fbi's dramatic arrests

Of the russian illegals spy network in the us,

Two planes touched down at vienna airport.

In front of the world's media,

10 deep-cover russian illegals were about

To be exchanged for four alleged cia and mi6 agents.

(dramatic music)

Harding: I was sitting in my soviet sort of

Style flat with a phone

And an old style desk, and I was watching the news

About this kind of breaking story

Which sounded like something from the 40s and 50s,

But, of course, it was real, it was dramatic.

Panettal one group made their way across the airport

To the other plane, they literally crossed paths.

I have often said it was right out of the third man.

(dramatic music)

(crowd cheering)

Lewis: The illegals would go on

To receive a hero's welcome from the kremlin.

(dramatic music)

Anna chapman reverted to anna kushchenko

And became a media sensation.

Vasiliev: When she came back to moscow, putin used her

For patriotic education of young russian people

And she herself became a successful business woman,

She had a career in show business, in modeling and so on,

So it's a beautiful spy story, everyone was happy.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: On the airport tarmac,

The four russians accused of spying

For the west toasted to their freedom and new lives.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

Goodman: History tells us the soviet intelligence

And russian intelligence do not forgive people

Who have betrayed the motherland.

Putin is very clear on this.

Vasiliev: The defectors know they are traitors,

They know they are scumbags.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: In the summer of 2010, sutyagin, vasilenko,

Zaporozhsky and skripal began new lives with putin's threats

Of revenge ringing in their ears.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Eight years after the arrest of the russian illegals

And the vienna spy exchange,

East-west tensions were once again rising.

(crowd cheering)

Now putin was back in the kremlin,

Accused of interfering in the 2016 us presidential election.

(dramatic music)

(birds chirping)

At the same time, in a peaceful cathedral city

In the southwest of England, former mi6 agent sergei skripal

Was enjoying a quiet life in a resettlement program.

(dramatic music)

Goodman: Skripal, when he was resettled in the uk,

Probably thought he could get away

With living quite an open life.

He'd been pardoned by a previous russian president,

Previous russian administration.

He did not adopt a covert lifestyle,

He did not adopt a different name.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: On March the 3rd, yulia skripal,

Sergei's daughter, flew from moscow to visit her father.

She was unaware her movements were being closely monitored

By her father's former colleagues

In russian military intelligence.

The following day, father and daughter dined at a restaurant

In the city center.

Within just two hours came news of a catastrophic incident.

Harding: I was in london, at home, when the news broke.

It was the Monday evening when there was a statement

That came out that a former russian spy had fallen ill

In suspicious circumstances and was possibly poisoned.

Police chief: The two people, a man aged 66

And a 33-year-old woman

Were found unconscious in a bench

In the maltings area of salisbury city center.

Lewis: The police investigation revealed father

And daughter had been poisoned by a deadly nerve agent

Developed by the russian military: Novichok.

Goodman: We know from metropolitan police

Records and photographs

That the poison was transported to the uk

In a small spray bottle, small perfume bottle.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Cctv revealed two men,

Later identified as alexandr mishkin and anatoly chepiga,

Arrive at salisbury railway station,

And make their way toward the skripal home.

Harding: Mishkin and chepiga they were colonels in the gr...

They applied this nerve agent novichok

To the front door handle of skripal's semi-detached home.

Lewis: Many believe evidence pointed

To a russian state-sponsored assassination plot.

Harding: The method of assassination,

Or attempted assassination,

Was practically identical to what happened in 2006

With alexander litvinenko.

Only one man is capable

Of approving a risky international plot like this.

That man is president of the russian federation.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: But the claim that putin

Was behind an assassination attempt

On british soil was hotly disputed by the kremlin.

Instead, mishkin and chepiga offered their own explanation

For their visit to salisbury.

(speaking in foreign language)

Vasiliev: Experts and journalists

Have been trying to come up

With a reasonable explanation of the salisbury case,

But they can't.

Why to kill sergei skripal with novichok, why?

He's not worth it, he's just a guy, he's just a traitor.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: In the wake of the skripal affair,

The uk government expelled 23 russian diplomats.

The total expelled worldwide exceeded 150,

Perhaps the largest collective expulsion

Of russian intelligence officers in history.

Decades after the collapse of the soviet union,

Putin's russia was still bitterly at odds with the west.

Figliuzzi: I think there is now a realization

Among the american public that we still have adversaries,

That the cold war is not over.

Lewis: Instead, we may just be entering a new era,

One in which russia's spymaster-in-chief

Has taken his spy war directly onto british

And american soil.

Panetta: Putin is kgb.

(camera clicking)

That's probably in many ways what identifies

The way he behaves, because he will always work the angles

To make sure that russian interests are protected.

Lewis: In 2011, an anonymous kremlin official

Suggested a russian hit squad was planning

To assassinate the man who had revealed the existence

Of the russian illegals and triggered the whole affair:

Colonel aleksandr poteyev.

(camera clicking)

Then, in July 2016, russian state tv announced that poteyev,

Though living under protection in the us, was dead.

Augustyn: It doesn't surprise me, let's put it that way.

You know, there have been attempts and speculation

About whether putin would actually, you know,

Go after people on american soil.

It doesn't surprise me in the least.

(camera clicking)

Panetta: Putin is not going to let a former spy suddenly live

In another country and die a happy life.

(camera clicking)

Putin is gonna take action to go after that individual

To send a real clear signal that nobody else ought

To do the same thing.

Lewis: By publicizing a traitor's death,

The kremlin claimed a public relations victory over the us.

But it just could be that the bizarre case

Of alexandr poteyev illuminates a moment

When us intelligence agencies chose not

To contradict russian propaganda

As the best way to ensure the safety of their agent.

Despite his obituaries, some claim the man

Who gave up russia's illegals network

Is still very much alive.

And the story seems far from over.

(dramatic music)