The spy next door: Moscow's century-long plot to infiltrate the west

History Extra podcast

Immediate Media

History

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2010, the world was stunned when the United States exposed a covert Russian spy network operating on its soil. Seemingly all-American families living in white-picket-fenced suburbia were in fact deep undercover Russian agents. Many had been living under assumed identities for decades, lying even to their own children. In this episode, journalist Shaun Walker speaks to Danny Bird about Moscow’s longlasting ‘illegals’ programme – perhaps the most audacious chapter in the history of espionage. He reveals how the roots of the operation reached back more than a century to before the Bolshevik Revolution; how the Soviet Union deployed it against supposedly ‘friendly’ states; and how today’s Russia reveres these spies as patriotic heroes. (Ad) Shaun Walker is the author of The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West (Profile Books, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-illegals%2Fshaun-walker%2F9781788167772. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:24.1	Personal contract purchase, subject status and availability, T's and Z's 18 plus,
0:27.6	excludes plug-in hybrids, Delantis Financial Services.
0:33.9	Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.
0:43.1	In 2010, the world was stunned when the United States exposed a covert Russian spy network operating on its own soil.
0:53.7	Seemingly all American families living in white picket-fenced suburbia were in fact deep-cover
1:00.2	Russian agents.
1:02.1	Many had been living under assumed identities for decades, lying even to their own children.
1:08.7	In this episode, journalist Sean Walker speaks to Danny Bird about Moscow's long-standing
1:14.8	illegals program.
1:16.8	He reveals how the roots of this operation reached back more than a century to before the
1:21.7	Bolshevik revolution, how the Soviet Union deployed it against supposedly friendly
1:26.5	states,
1:31.8	and how today's Russia reveres these spies as national heroes.
	...

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