A Russian military bomber engineer drove up to the U.S. Southwest border in late December, asking for asylum and offering up some of Russia’s most closely guarded military secrets, according to an unclassified U.S. Customs and Border Protection report obtained by Yahoo News.
You never know when a Russian defector is going to show up at the border.
It’s a good thing some dumbass GOP governor was not at the border trying to make a name for himself.
A Russian military bomber engineer drove up to the U.S. Southwest border in late December, asking for asylum and offering to reveal some of Russia’s most closely guarded military secrets, according to an unclassified Customs and Border Protection report obtained by Yahoo News.
The man and his family arrived in an armored SUV and asked to be admitted into the U.S. because he feared persecution for participating in anti-Putin protests in support of Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned Russian dissident. He then told CBP officials that he had information wanted by the U.S. government.
He said he was a civil engineer and that “his past employment had included working ... from 2018 to 2021 in the making of a particular type of military airplane at the Tupolev aircraft production facility in the city of Kazan in west-central Russia,” according to a Jan. 11 unclassified CBP report obtained by Yahoo News.
“He described the aircraft type as ‘an attack jet’ and said it ‘was called White Swan-TU160, the largest military aircraft.’”
Hopefully the information the US got from this engineer can be used to help Ukraine fight off Russian aggression.
“The TU-160 White Swan, also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Blackjack,’ is reportedly the most advanced strategic bomber in the Russian inventory and has been also used in a tactical airstrike role in the Ukraine war. According to open-source reporting, a major new construction program of an improved version of the aircraft as well as an upgrade program of existing aircraft got underway at the Tupolev facility during the past few years,” according to the unclassified “CBP Indications and Warnings Daily.”
Obviously Putin would love to put Novichok or Polonium in the tea of this defector. So his identity remains secret for now.
Yahoo News is withholding his name and details of where he arrived and applied for asylum after several officials raised concerns about the man’s safety.
[ ... ]
The engineer is believed to be inside the U.S. and is still being questioned by U.S. officials. He is likely being questioned about the restart of the Blackjack production, and the revamped or upgraded versions believed to have been worked on during the time of the Russian engineer’s employment."
He is also likely being asked about matters unrelated to the bomber jet, which could include everything from the email system, software, staffing and manufacturer used by the aircraft production facility — information that could be used to carry out targeted cyberattacks or for intelligence gathering or other efforts.
So more bad news for Putin – wherever he’s hiding out these days.
