| | | January to June 2013. Page meets and gives documents relating to U.S. sanctions against Russia to Victor Podobnyy, an alleged Russian intelligence operative in New York City. Page provides documents to him from January to June. Podobnyy served as an operative for Russia’s external intelligence agency while officially claiming to work at Moscow’s U.N. Mission in New York, although Page believed he was a Russian businessman. Page later told BuzzFeedthat their interactions did not include anything sensitive.
Court documents show that Podobnyy tried to recruit Page (“Male-1”) “as an intelligence source.” Pobodnyy did not seem impressed with Page, labeling him an “idiot,” but one whose eagerness to garner lots of money could make him useful. Podobnyy claimed to have offered to connect Page with Russian trade representatives in exchange for documents about U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Podobnyy: [Page] wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could be rise up. Maybe he can. I don’t know, but it’s obvious that he wants to earn lots of money.
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Podobnyy: […] For now his enthusiasm works for me. I also promised him a lot…
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Podobnyy: I did not even indicate that this [Podobnyy’s offer to connect Page with Trade Representatives] is connected to a government agency. This is intelligence method to cheat, how else to work with foreigners? You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him to go ____ himself…This is ideal working method.
2014. According to later reporting by CNN, the FBI begins monitoring Page's communications under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, owing to his 2013 contacts with Russian operatives. *
Jan. 23, 2015. The U.S. government charges Podobnyy and two other Russian operatives for acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government, after it had broken up a Russian spy ring aimed at seeking information on U.S. sanctions. Federal prosecutors include the Russian intelligence effort to recruit Page as part of the government’s evidence.
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