Russian Traitor Being Hunted by Hitman in U.S.

The Russian intelligence officer who outed a spy ring operating in the U.S. is apparently the target of a contract killer.

In June a Russian defector told U.S. authorities of 10 Kremlin spies living quiet lives in suburban America. They were apprehended and sent back to Moscow. The incident was a major embarrassment for Russia’s intelligence service, and the Russian newspaper Kommersant is reporting that a hitman has been dispatched to murder the defector. The paper identified the traitor as Col. Shcherbakov, who was reportedly the spy ring’s handler before he defected and fled to the U.S. An unnamed Kremlin source said that a “Mercader” had been sent after the former spy, a reference to Ramon Mercader, the assassin who murdered Leon Trotsky in 1940.