US, Russia agree on possible 'spy swap deal'

London, July 8 (ANI): Russia and the US are said to have agreed on 'spy swap deal' involving Russian beauty Anna Chapman, and it could take place as early as today in Austrian capital Vienna.

According to The Sun, these two countries are said to have agreed to the exchange after the arrest of ten suspected Moscow spies, including Chapman, in America last month.

The paper also stated that nuclear expert Igor Sutyagin, who was jailed for 15 years in Russia in 2004 for spying for the CIA, is said to be one of the agents involved in the deal. He could be on his way from Moscow to Britain.

"He is going to be exchanged for the people accused of espionage in the US," The Sun quoted Sutyagin's lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, as saying.

The swap will prevent 28-year-old 'Russian spy' Anna Chapman, from testifying in the US.

The swap deal would be the first since the end of the Cold War two decades ago. Before that, Moscow and Washington periodically exchanged captured spies, such as in 1962, when captured U.S. Air Force Pilot F. Gary Powers was swapped for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. Later, the Soviet government began exchanging dissidents for its agents captured in the West. (ANI)