*Yes, this spy story is indeed a bit less Anna Chapman, and rather more Le Carre'.
http://www.mn.ru/international/20100920/188054787.html
While the Anna Chapman story was the spy drama grabbing headlines this summer, a far more intriguing Russian espionage mystery has gone largely unreported in the international press.
On August 28, a short obituary in the Defence Ministry’s official newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, or Red Star, carried the terse news that General Yury Ivanov, a deputy head of the foreign intelligence department (GRU), had died.
There were no details, merely a note about his “tragic death”.
The same day, RIA Novosti cited a military source as saying that Ivanov died “several days ago while swimming”.
The plot thickened, however, with revelations in the Turkish and Syrian press that Ivanov, a veteran of military operations in the North Caucasus, had disappeared some weeks previously, after swimming on a beach in Syria. His decomposing body had then washed up on a beach in neighbouring Turkey....
(((I probably shouldn't feel a lot of pity for a guy in this cold-blooded line of work... but I do.)))
