“It is very unlikely that the US administration is trying to send some political signal; instead this case is more likely being announced now because now is when the prosecutors decided they had enough evidence to make a case,” Pillar told Sputnik on Tuesday.
Pillar was commenting on New York federal prosecutors charging Russian nationals Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobny with acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government in the United States for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, with the accused potentially facing up to 15 years in prison.
“Diplomats have long been a favorite recruitment target of intelligence services around the world, partly because of their accessibility to foreigners and residence outside their home countries,” the former CIA official said.
Pillar added that It would not be surprising if Russia would use every means at its disposal "to gather all the information it can that is related to economic sanctions that Western governments impose.”
On Tuesday, the spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich said the United States has not provided any evidence to support the charges.
Also on Tuesday, Russia's Vnesheconombank confirmed that Buryakov served as a deputy representative of the bank in New York City. According to the US Department of Justice, Sporyshev said he was a Russian trade representative, while Podobny said he served as an attache to Moscow's mission to the United Nations.
