this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
247 points (97.0% liked)

News

23274 readers
3097 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
247
Children of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin says (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Their parents posed as Argentinian citizens, and Vladimir Putin greeted the children in Spanish. According to the Kremlin, they did not speak Russian nor did they know who Putin was.

Why did Russian President Vladimir Putin greet the children of just-freed Russian spies in Spanish?

The reason is straight out of an episode of the hit TV spy show “The Americans.”

Among the first prisoners stepping off the plane to greet President Putin was a slender brown-haired woman grasping the hand of her young daughter. She appeared to stifle a sob as she hugged Putin. He handed her a bouquet of purple and white flowers, and another to her daughter. Putin also hugged her husband and kissed their son. 

Then, over the din of the airplane, Putin could be heard greeting the children with “buenas noches” — the Spanish phrase for “good evening.”

Their parents were undercover Russian spies who posed as Argentinian citizens living in Slovenia and went by the names Ludwig Gisch and Maria Rosa Mayer Muños. They were part of Thursday's massive prisoner swap involving several countries.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] tal@lemmy.today 34 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

First, their parents were sleeper agents in Slovenia, not the US.

But, okay. Let's say that it was the US involved, not Slovenia.

The US, unlike Slovenia, uses jus soli -- if you're born on American soil, whether your parents are present legally or not (with very, very few exceptions, like for diplomats and soldiers of a foreign power occupying American territory), you are an American citizen.

But even then, it sounds like the kids were born prior to the parents entering the country, so they wouldn't have been American citizens. Their parents apparently got visas on forged Argentinian passports, and I assume that whatever visa the kids were on was contingent on that, so the visa would presumably have been invalidated.

Besides, I assume that their parents didn't want to leave them behind. I mean, yeah, their parents were spies, but I don't expect that we're going to take someone's kids over that.

And the kids didn't think that they were Slovenian, but rather from Argentina. Up until the plane ride, that's probably where they expected to wind up.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 months ago

IIRC they were in a foster family due to both parents being in prison for a year+, with them having a weird legal status. It sucks to be these kids and I don't think someone asked them.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

Canada uses Jus Soli too (as well as Jus Sanguinis), but they fought to not grant citizenship to a kid born in Canada whose parents turned out to be spies.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/son-of-russian-spies-fights-for-canadian-citizenship-1.4681419

The government's argument was that since the parents were on fraudulent documents and were effectively working for the Russian embassy, their kids shouldn't have Canadian citizenship.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

It's possible they were born in Argentina which also has jus soli. But they would also almost certainly have Russian citizenship via jus sanguinis.