2024-08-07 08:09:42
Married couple Artiomas Dulceva and Anna Dulceva, who spent years in Slovenia posing as Argentine expats, returned to Russia last week with their two children, 11-year-old Sofia and 9-year-old Danijil, and were hailed as heroes. Such spies live abroad for long periods under assumed identities. in 2010 in a prisoner exchange, a similar couple returned to Russia, raising their sons as Canadians.
In the first interview since the exchange, which saw the return of at least four Russian agents, Dulcev spoke to the Rossiya television channel at the foreign intelligence headquarters. Last month, the Dulcevas were convicted of espionage in Slovenia.
“We told the children that we are Russians, that they are Russians and that we are Dulcevas,” A. Dulceva recalled the conversation on the plane from Ankara with a smile. Her husband said their daughter “was upset and cried a little.” Their son “reacted to it more calmly, but very positively,” he added.
Dressed in pink shirts and dark jeans, the couple walked hand-in-hand with their children, who after their arrest in 2022. were transferred to custody in December. Dulceva was shown praising the children in Spanish – “muy bien” – when they said their first phrases in Russian. She said it was difficult for her to speak Russian again.
“You don’t think in this language (Russian) anymore, you control yourself all the time, and when we arrived we realized we couldn’t speak,” she said.
Russia, whose president is a former KGB agent, praised the couple’s commitment. “They are high-class specialists – such people devote their whole lives to serving the motherland and make sacrifices, a normal person does not understand this,” said a voice behind the frame. – The Dulcevs raised their children as Spanish-speaking Catholics. Now they will learn what borscht is.”
The interviewer gave the children a Cheburashka toy, a children’s character from the Soviet era.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin hugged A. Dulceva and she cried as she entered Russian soil on Thursday.
“When I saw the honor guard through the window of the plane, I started to cry, and Sofia said, ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen you cry,'” the Russian agent said. She said she felt “great gratitude to our country, great gratitude to Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin).”
In prison, “we never doubted for a moment that the country remembers us, that Russia and the (secret) service support us,” said A. Dulcev. He is from the Bashkiria region of Russia, while A. Dulceva is from the city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russian television reported. A. Dulceva promised that they will continue to “serve Russia”.
2024-08-07 08:09:42