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Comment by dx87 | Hacker News Reader

It could also just be done as a thinly veiled threat to discourage people from working there. Even if nobody is arrested, the statement is basically saying "it doesn't matter where you are, or how secretive your work is, we can find you". I can imagine spouses and family would suggest they start looking for a different job after seeing the announcment.

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Indeed. And as GP said. If you force your adversary to take more precautions you're driving up the cost, increase the time it takes for them to perform operations, makes them need more experienced/educated personnel, more procedures to catch mistakes, etc. etc.

That's not a bad thing for Russia's adversaries.

It also means that they can't visit countries with an extradition treaty with the U.S. This is not the biggest penalty ever but it's something.

And it's even more of 'something' when you're in a country with a questionable economy and future.

I'd have to think if you're an adequately-compensated-but-not-connected person in Russia, you'd be keeping a Plan B in your back pocket "just in case".

Also assets, interests, and possibly more.

It's basically, "good luck taking the wife & kids on holiday outside of Russia!"

Or investments, purchases, business opportunities, ...

@dx87: “It could also just be done as a thinly veiled threat to discourage people from working there”

Yea, those damn Ruskies are so stupid they left their name and home address in the compiled files.

Not far off from that, it seems:

https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1318277154908536833

@green_rooster: “Not far off from that, it seems:”

Ни черта не умеют!

But this is only six people. I'm sure they have hundreds or thousands of people working on "the America project" at the GRU.

We nailed 6 of them. So what? Foreign intelligence agencies weed out a CIA spy every now and then, but that doesn't seem to deter the CIA.

Honestly, having worked for large companies, it's astonishing how few people are working on any given project. It's normally a handful of people actively contributing to any given specific project.

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