As it moves to transform U.S. relations with Russia, the Trump administration is talking with Moscow about readmitting potentially scores of Russian diplomats into the United States after years of expulsions.
But the good-will gesture, which would be reciprocated by Moscow, could be a kind of Trojan horse, experts and diplomats warn, as the Kremlin is likely to dispatch spies posing as diplomats to restore its diminished espionage capabilities within the United States.
U.S. and Russian officials met in Istanbul last month to discuss returning more diplomats to each other’s countries after years of tit-for-tat expulsions and the shuttering of diplomatic facilities. The midlevel talks, part of a rapid rapprochement between the Kremlin and the White House under President Trump, took place at the U.S. consul’s residence.
Days earlier in Riyadh, a U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Russian officials agreed “to ensure that our diplomatic missions can function,” as Mr. Rubio told reporters.
Both sides say the move could pave the way for a broader peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
An agreement to normalize diplomatic operations might also enable the United States to conduct espionage activities of its own: Washington has long placed spies in U.S. embassies and consulates in Russia. But experts say that even if a deal expands both diplomatic contingents in comparable numbers, any Russian spies would enjoy an advantage, working in a more open society in the United States.
The renewed access, combined with Mr. Trump’s courtship of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, could spell opportunity for the Kremlin’s espionage apparatus at a time when Moscow’s operations against the West have grown more brazen, according to intelligence experts and former officials.
The Trump administration has installed several officials sympathetic to Moscow’s worldview, raising questions about whether it will continue to prioritize counterintelligence operations against Russia. And the appointment of the political operative Kash Patel and the conservative media personality Dan Bongino atop the F.B.I. promises upheaval in the force whose counterintelligence division tracks Russian spies.
“If I were sitting in Yasenevo or Lubyanka and targeting Americans, I would be rubbing my hands with glee,” said Paul Kolbe, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, referring to the headquarters of Russia’s foreign and domestic intelligence services.
The potential expansion of the Russian diplomatic footprint in the United States comes as Russia’s intelligence services have grown more brazen in their operations against the West.
Last year, Russia plotted to place incendiary devices on cargo planes in Europe, and to assassinate the chief executive of a German arms maker supplying weapons to Ukraine. Russian intelligence officers have also been accused of carrying out a sabotage campaign aimed at raising the costs for Europe to support Ukraine.
Experts say the Kremlin would be eager to reverse a decade of U.S. action against its intelligence operatives working under diplomatic cover.
As hostility grew between Washington and Moscow in recent years, three U.S. presidents expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats accused of spying and shut down a half-dozen Russian diplomatic facilities, several of which officials said were used for espionage activities.
Russia responded with largely equivalent actions, and each side now caps the number of diplomats it will host from the other.
Today, only skeleton crews remain on each side, including many fewer intelligence officers.
The U.S. presence in Russia has plunged by about 90 percent, from more than 1,200 U.S. diplomats and local support workers spread across five facilities to about 120 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, according to former U.S. officials. (The State Department says it will not discuss diplomatic staffing details for security reasons.)
Around 220 Russian diplomats remain in the United States, according to one of the former U.S. officials. Most work at the Russian Embassy in Washington, but dozens are also based at Russia’s United Nations mission in New York as well as a consulate in Houston.
Both governments complain that even routine diplomatic work like processing visas and assisting traveling citizens has become nearly impossible. Mr. Rubio said last month that he hoped to “work very quickly to reestablish the functionality of our respective missions.”
The two sides “identified concrete initial steps” toward that goal in Istanbul and will meet again soon, the State Department said in a statement.
The Russian delegation was led by Alexander Darchiev, a longtime diplomat who has been named Moscow’s new ambassador to Washington. The Americans were led by Sonata Coulter, a career State Department official who has served in Russia.
If expanded diplomatic ranks are tapped for espionage on both sides, Russia is expected to have an inherent advantage. Moscow is very aggressive about placing intelligence operatives under diplomatic cover abroad, said a former senior U.S. diplomat with Russia expertise.
It is also easier for Russian agents to operate in the United States than it is for U.S. officials to function in an authoritarian, wartime Russia, said Mr. Kolbe, who served for 25 years in the C.I.A.’s operations division.
“The Russian diplomatic presence will be heavily loaded with intelligence offers aiming to penetrate the American government and businesses,” he said. “They will have far more access and freedom of action than American diplomats in Moscow, who will contend with 24/7 physical and technical surveillance and harassment.”
Mr. Trump’s disruption of the federal work force could also benefit the Kremlin, Mr. Kolbe added.
“All the factors that create potentials for walk-ins or recruitment,” including political disaffection, ideological sympathy, money problems or being angry at bosses seem to be in play now, he said.
By contrast, said Andrei Soldatov, a London-based expert on Russian intelligence, merely speaking with an American now poses a serious risk for Russian officials.
“Even that could constitute a crime,” he said. “You could be branded a foreign agent. You could be accused of high treason.”
(One potential benefit to the United States of expanded diplomatic ranks would be that Russian diplomats who are spies are at least known threats; U.S. officials say that Russia has made up for its losses by inserting more agents into America under nonofficial cover.)
The U.S.-Russia relationship deteriorated sharply after the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
President Barack Obama responded by ordering 35 Russian “intelligence operatives” to leave the country and required Russia to vacate two luxurious waterfront diplomatic compounds in New York and Maryland. President Trump expelled an additional 60 Russian diplomats and closed down Russia’s consulate in Seattle in 2018 after Russian agents poisoned a former Russian spy on British soil. (Mr. Trump acted amid pressure from European leaders and Russia hawks in Congress and on his national security team.)
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ejected 10 more Russian diplomats and a dozen accused spies from Moscow’s United Nations mission after Russian cyberattacks and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In nearly every case, the Kremlin retaliated by expelling equivalent numbers of American diplomats. Russia also ordered the closure of the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg, and staff shortages forced the State Department to close two others.
The Kremlin barred the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from employing locals who often performed maintenance and support work, forcing American diplomats to assume responsibilities such as cleaning floors and shoveling snow. The United States could not respond in kind because Russia, as a matter of policy, does not employ Americans at its U.S. facilities.
Mr. Obama closed Russia’s waterfront properties in New York and Maryland because the Russians used them to evade American surveillance by having conversations on the beach, U.S. officials said.
Two consulates closed in Mr. Trump’s first term were also seen as intelligence threats. One, in San Francisco, provided access to Silicon Valley’s technology secrets. The other, in Seattle, was near a nuclear submarine base and the headquarters of the defense contractor Boeing.
If the talks advance, Mr. Kolbe said, the United States should move deliberately and in stages, observe strict reciprocity and not reward Russia immediately with full diplomatic staffing.
But Mr. Soldatov warned that the United States must remain vigilant.
“The Russians, they will try to exploit this new opportunity, which is given to them, like a gift,” he said.
He added, “I think it’s quite a significant risk.”
Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
