Deported Russian Spy-Swap Researcher May Return Home

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian arms expert convicted of espionage in 2004, may return home after he was deported to England in a spy swap with the U.S. last week, a former colleague said.

“He needs to get his health back first, but I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t return to Russia,” Pavel Podvig, an independent arms researcher, said by telephone from Geneva today. “He has Russian citizenship, his wife and daughters are in Russia and he has been pardoned by the president. And he has always been very patriotic.”