What We Should Have Traded the Russian Spies For
Looks like our Russian spies are going back home as part of a prisoner exchange. Too bad! They seemed so fun! But why are we trading them for Western spies, when Russia has so much more to offer?
Eleven days ago, 10 people—including sexxy spy Anna Chapman, pictured—were arrested and charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without properly registering (eight faced money-laundering charges as well). On Thursday, they pled guilty in New York, some of them revealing their real names, and were almost immediately whisked away to be deported.
Thanks to a desire on both Russia and the U.S.'s part to get this whole thing over with, the 10 agents will be handed over to Russian authorities in Vienna on Friday. In exchange, Russia will release four prisoners it says were spies for the U.S. and its allies. But why settle for that? Here's what we should have traded:
Instead of: Igor V. Sutyagin, "an arms control researcher held for 11 years"
We should have asked for: One of those fur hats, with the flaps.
Instead of: Sergei Skripal, "a colonel in Russia's military intelligence service sentenced in 2006 to 13 years for spying for Britain"
We should have asked for: A really good recipe for blintzes.
Instead of: Aleksandr Zaporozhsky, "a former agent with Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service who has served seven years of an 18-year sentence"
We should have asked for: A concise, coherent explanation of the mechanics of faith, doubt and free will in The Brothers Karamazov.
Instead of: Gennadi Vasilenko, "a former K.G.B. major who was arrested in 1998 for contacts with a C.I.A. officer but eventually released only to be arrested again in 2005 and later convicted on illegal weapons charges."
We should have asked for: Nesting dolls. Like, a hundred of them.