Russia plays down US reports about spy in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle

A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the reports by CNN and The New York Times as ‘the genre of pulp fiction’ and ‘crime reading’

But he did confirm a low-level official who Russian media suggested was the agent had worked at the Kremlin before being fired

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The extracted spy had reportedly confirmed the meddling of Vladimir Putin’s Russia in US elections. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:15pm, 10 Sep 2019Updated: 8:16pm, 10 Sep 2019

The Kremlin on Tuesday played down US media reports of a CIA spy inside Russia’s presidential administration, calling them “pulp fiction”, but said a low-level official who Russian media suggested was the agent had worked there before being fired.

CNN reported on Monday that the United States had successfully extracted one of its highest-level covert sources inside Russia in 2017. The New York Times later said the informant had sent secrets to Washington for decades.

A source familiar with US monitoring of Russian activities confirmed that such a CIA informant inside the Russian government did exist and that the informant had been extracted and brought to the US.

The source indicated that US officials were seriously concerned that Kremlin officials had made public what they claimed was the individual’s name.

Russian daily newspaper Kommersant said on Tuesday the official may have been a man called Oleg Smolenkov, who is reported to have disappeared with his wife and three children while on holiday in Montenegro in 2017 and is now reported to be living in the US.

A serviceman walks in front of St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin on Red Square in Moscow. Photo: AFP

Kommersant published a picture of a house in Virginia which it said had been bought by a man called Smolenkov in 2018.