Wow. This is eerily like the television show The Americans, but with just one difference.

[Tommy Carcetti]

Link to tweet

max seddon @maxseddon

The children of Anna and Artem Dultsev, the Russian deep cover spies returned home as part of the prisoner exchange, didn’t know they were Russian until their plane took off for Moscow for the swap, the Kremlin says. They don’t speak Russian, so Putin greeted them in Spanish.

Last edited 6:42 AM · Aug 2, 2024 · 277.2K Views

The Dultsevs raised their children in Argentina and they had no clue their parents were Russian spies.

I guess you can call it The South Americans.

(BTW, The Americans is an excellent show if you haven't seen it yet. Still has probably the best series finale of a show I've ever seen.)

[obamanut2012]

1. Second The Americans

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Jesus Christ, those poor kids.

[ms liberty]

3. That was my first thought, too

They've probably destroyed their relationship with their children.

[msfiddlestix]

4. The Americans was a fascinating tv series based on true events. fascinating and stunning.

kind of scary too.
Kerri Russell has a fantastic Netflix series called The Diplomats, very different theme.plot.
Lots of interesting drama, with a wee drop of comedic moments, I can't wait until the next season.
The story of the Americans is really quite fascinating, I would be interesting in more film or television productions of other stories in this world of deep cover Russian sleeper cells.

[themaguffin]

5. Too bad the kids didn't stay behind like in the show.

[peppertree]

6. Don't spy for me, Argentina

There was a massive Cheeto-era espionage scandal in Argentina - another Trump scandal no one's heard of (https://geopolitics.co/2019/03/23/dont-spy-for-me-argentina/).

It involved a CIA asset (Marcelo d'Alessio), tasked with finding dirt on the Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA - and Argentina's center-left Kirchnerists (as well as against Uruguay).

He didn't. But he did extort numerous businessmen into giving false testimony against them - again, at the Trump regime's behest (to give his idiot pal Macri a hand).

But the scandal blew open in early 2019 after d'Alessio went rogue, going so far as to extort an organic berry farmer into giving him hundreds of thousands.

The berry farmer secretly recorded him though, coaxing him into revealing more and more with his thoughtful little ¡Mirá vos! ("Would you look at that!" ).

The U.S. Embassy had to go into damage control mode, and the scandal contributed to Macri's re-election defeat - the very thing the spy was tasked with avoiding!

Anything Trump (and his idiot pal Macri) touches, turns to popó.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Though the parents had been in jail for a year and a half, and the children in foster care

They must have been given some reason for their parents being in jail:

The couple pleaded guilty to charges of spying and falsifying documents, the Ljubljana regional court said in a statement. The court sentenced them to more than a year and a half in prison, equivalent to time served, and ordered their expulsion from the country. They were also banned from returning to Slovenia for a period of five years.

It is believed the couple took advantage of Slovenia’s position inside the Schengen free movement zone to perform tasks across Europe for Russian intelligence. One source previously told the Guardian that during a search of an office used by the pair, police found so much cash that it took hours to count. The pair’s two children were taken into foster care after their arrest and continued to attend an international school in Ljubljana. It is not clear what will happen to them now.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/31/russian-spies-sentenced-slovenia-court-prisoner-exchanges

[Renew Deal]

8. It's going to be a significantly different life in Russia compared to Argentina