According to a source intimately involved in the events, when Washington informed the Kremlin of the expulsions, the diplomatic message omitted any mention of the planned murder, focusing instead on the SolarWinds cyberattack.
The Miami Assassination Plot
The sequence leading to the diplomatic measures began when Russian intelligence targeted Poteyev, who had betrayed Moscow’s deep-cover “illegals” network, leading to the 2010 arrest of ten operatives including Anna Chapman. After the CIA extracted and resettled Poteyev in the United States under a new identity, a Kremlin spokesman warned that an assassin would be sent after him. Russian handlers recruited Hector Fuentes, a Mexican microbiologist, paying him $20,000 to rent an apartment and surveil the target. The operation collapsed when Fuentes photographed Poteyev’s license plate and attracted apartment security guards. American border officials discovered the photograph as Fuentes attempted to return to Mexico, leading to his arrest and confession.
Intelligence Assessments and the Taliban Bounty Program
The assassination plot formed part of a broader pattern viewed from Moscow as a display of American weakness. In 2020, reports emerged that Russian military intelligence was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American service personnel in Afghanistan. Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John J. Sullivan wrote that he examined the intelligence and found the proof persuasive. According to a source with knowledge of the events, American authorities tracked a Russian officer traveling to Dubai to meet an Afghan contractor who facilitated payments through an intermediary, Afghan-Russian gem smuggler Rahmatullah Azizi. Although the intelligence reached the President’s Daily Brief in February 2020, Donald Trump denied being briefed and dismissed the reports as fake news, resulting in no U.S. response.
Afghanistan Withdrawal and Havana Syndrome Investigations
The chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 further reinforced perceptions in the Kremlin of declining American resolve. As the Taliban regained control, international audiences watched desperate Afghans cling to a taxiing C-17 aircraft at Kabul airport, an operation that also saw a suicide bombing kill thirteen U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians. Concurrently, American officials continued experiencing mysterious neurological symptoms known as Havana Syndrome dating back to 2016. While a 2023 intelligence assessment deemed foreign involvement “very unlikely,” two reliable sources stated that Russian involvement by Unit 29155 operatives using electronic weapons was regarded as almost certain, though elements of the CIA allegedly suppressed evidence to avoid an act of war. In December 2024, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that a foreign adversary likely caused at least some of the incidents, criticizing the previous assessment for lacking analytic integrity.
Diplomatic Stagnation and Unresolved Posture
The convergence of the Miami assassination plot, the unaddressed bounty program, the Kabul withdrawal, and the official handling of Havana Syndrome preceded Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Western governments face an entrenched revanchist strategy rooted in KGB security perspectives that views Washington as its primary adversary.
