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  • The Guardian

    The Russian spy who posed as a Canadian for more than 20 years

    Elena Vavilova’s book offers rare insight into the Soviet deep-cover ‘illegals’ programme
    by Shaun Walker in Moscow Aug 23, 2019 4 minutes
    Elena Vavilova worked as a deep-cover Russian operative in Canada for over 20 years with the stolen identity, Tracy Foley. Photograph: Handout

    “A spy has to be an actor, but an actor that doesn’t need a public or a stage, and doesn’t require the approval of others,” says Elena Vavilova, as she sips a cappuccino in a Moscow cafe.

    Vavilova acted the part of a Canadian woman named Tracy Foley, an identity stolen for her by the KGB, for two decades. Almost no one knew her real identity, not even her own children. She was an “illegal”, a deep-cover Russian operative sent to the west along with her husband Andrei Bezrukov, who used the name Donald Heathfield.

    Vavilova and Bezrukov were arrested at their Boston home in 2010, part of that included media favourite Anna Chapman and also involved four Russians accused of spying for the west travelling in the other direction, including Sergei Skripal, who was infamously poisoned in Salisbury last year.

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