Maria Rosa Mayeur Munhoz and her husband are an Argentinean couple who have been living in the Slovenian capital since 2017, they each run a company and lead a quiet life with their two children in a quiet community.
But all this turned out to be a complete sham. In early December 2022, secret police broke into the couple’s Ljubljana home and arrested them, identifying them as Russian secret agents Artyom Dul<sup>?</sup>Tsev and Anna Doolitzeva.
The Prime Minister’s Cabinet Secretary, Vojko Wolk, said Monday that Slovenian security intelligence had found them on the tip of a foreign intelligence agency, but he did not say which national intelligence agency.
The couple were detained for nearly 20 months.
On July 31st, in a hastily arranged secret trial, a Slovenian court sentenced Mr and Mrs Dul<sup>?</sup>Tsev to a year and seven months in prison. The two had previously pleaded guilty to espionage and false identity charges.
The Ljubljana District Court said on its website that the couple had served their sentences and would therefore be deported and banned from Slovenia for five years. The statement did not say when the two Russians would be expelled.
The next day, it all came out.
On August 1st Mr and Mrs Dul<sup>?</sup>Tsev and their children flew to Moscow, becoming the subjects of the biggest prisoner exchange between the west and Russia since the Cold War.
They were welcomed by President Putin Putin, who gave her a big hug and flowers.
Volcker said negotiations to exchange the spies began shortly after their arrest, the report said.
“For a year, negotiations with the Russian side have been conducted in complete secrecy,” he said
Wolk said the prisoner exchange talks were held with vice-president Kamala Harriss on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich in February.
The DUL<sup>?</sup>Tsev have an 11-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son, the report said.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that the parents lived a completely different life, so that the children did not know they were Russian until after the plane took off. The kids don’t speak Russian, and they don’t know who Putin is.
“This is how they work,” said Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, “And they make such sacrifices out of dedication to their work.”