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Comment by eloff | Hacker News Reader

Hilarious, but definitely not a spy. The Russians aren't so amateur as to send an undercover agent to the US who can't speak English.

If they missed the opportunity at the Capitol the other day to plant listening devices though, they must be kicking themselves now.

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You say that, but they have had spies being exposed for a lot of stupid reasons. Like having their address on driving licenses be the FSB headquarters to avoid getting traffic tickets.

Also, it seems entirely possible to me that they would do that not for the purposes of spying, but to sow chaos.

Seems like the kind of expendable person they might send for what is basically a smash-and-grab.

How undercover does he need to be if American citizens are openly planning online to storm the Capitol? He just needs to wear a MAGA hat and walk in with them.

Ok, probably not a spy, but who knows?

I'd say Russia definitely has at least a subset of very amateurish spies. An example coming to mind is the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, UK.

Isn't Stalin rumored to have said, "There's a certain quality in quantity" in response to criticism that quality beats quantity? I think the quote is one of those unproven maybe-it-happened-but-we-have-no-solid-evidence things, but it seems to sum up the Russian approach to tanks and troops in WWII well enough, and from stories I've read, seems to be reflect their approach in the spy world as well. They are immensely practical.

How was that amateurish? Acquiring and handling such a substance would not be easy.

They left a pretty clear trail, and they didn't actually succeed in killing the target. Sounds amateurish to me.

That sounds intentional. The only reason to use novichok as the weapon is precisely so everyone knows who did it. It's meant to be an example to others so they don't cross the Russian government.

Spies aren't the same as we see in the movies. Remember CIA field operatives used chip bags to hide their cell phones' signal.

Clearly they never tried calling those phones to test...

To be fair the CIA operatives likely saw the chip bag trick in a movie. Art emulates life emulates art.

Why would a Russian spy not want Russian translators and lawyers?

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