‘Spymania’ sees Russia accuse US of plan to meddle in its election

Vladimir Putin and Sergei Naryshkin in 2013. Naryshkin, now head of the SVR, claims former exchange students in Russia pose a security threat. Photograph: Reuters

The head of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, has claimed that the US is planning to interfere in the re-election campaign of Vladimir Putin, saying Russian graduates of US education programmes could be mobilised to serve as a potential “fifth column”.

Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian spymaster, said that the US planned to “activate” Russians graduates of the Fulbright, Summer Work Travel, high-school Flex and other exchange programmes to “replace the non-systemic opposition that fled en masse to the west and become the core element of the fifth column”.