The arrest of two Russian spies in Poland this past October is shocking. For many, the scandal lies in the penetration it revealed of the Defense Ministry in Warsaw, with a senior officer arrested along with a Polish-Russian lawyer who appears to have been part of another operation. But a little reflection suggests the real shock should be about something else. Poland, with its robust foreign policy stance and big defense budget, is a major target for Russian intelligence; clearly the Kremlin will have some successes. The real scandal, rather, is that so few Russian spies get caught and prosecuted.
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Russian anti-Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny (R) listens to his brother and co-defendant Oleg as they attend the verdict announcement of their fraud trial at a court in Moscow on December 30, 2014. Russia's top opposition leader Alexei Navalny on December 30 called for mass protests to \"destroy\" President Vladimir Putin's regime after a court handed him a suspended sentence but jailed his brother in a controversial fraud case. In a lightning hearing that was abruptly brought forward by two weeks, a judge found both Navalny and his brother Oleg guilty of embezzlement and sentenced the siblings to three and a half years in what is widely seen as a politically motivated case. AFP PHOTO / DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV
