The tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats between Russia and the United States will hurt Vladimir Putin's spy operation much more than it will our nation's intelligence community, retired CIA operations officer Scott Uehlinger tells Newsmax TV.
"We gain from this because only a very small percentage of Western diplomats are intelligence officers," Uehlinger, national security expert, told "John Cardillo on Newsmax TV."
"The Russians operate on a much different level. The Russians probably literally have 10 times as many intelligence officers undercover than we or France or England or any other country involved in this mass ejection of Russians has.
"So, the result is when the Russians retaliate by closing remaining embassies or curtailing personnel at different missions in Russia, they are actually only hurting themselves."
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Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday his country is expelling 60 U.S. diplomats and ordering the closure of the American consulate in St. Petersburg, mirroring the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the U.S. and other countries.
He signaled a similar response to European countries that are booting Russian diplomats over an attack in England in which a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve gas.
Uehlinger said a "great deal" of Americans who work at the U.S. embassy in Moscow are actually there for programs that benefit the Russian people, not so much the United States.
"The spies have already been sent home, and so now they're going to be cutting into the people who approve Russian visas to visit New York or visit Disney World and things like that," he told Cardillo.
"So, in the end, we are getting much more out of this. We have a much reduced capability of Russian intelligence in the West, in the United States in particular, and that's always a good thing . . . This will put Russian intelligence under a great deal of pressure."
Meanwhile, it was revealed Thursday that Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal — both victims of the gas attack in Salisbury, England — is no longer in a critical condition and is improving rapidly.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said Putin is "responsible as the head of state" for the poisoning.
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