Ex-KGB Agent Detained by U.S. Returns to Moscow

A former KGB agent held in the United States on espionage charges flew back to a hero’s welcome in Moscow on Saturday and said it felt great to be free again.

Washington dismissed its case against Vladimir Galkin on Thursday after Moscow threatened retaliatory measures.

Russia believes the United States violated an unwritten, gentlemanly code of honor in international espionage allowing former agents to travel freely.

“I was sure that my country would not leave me in trouble, and I am very glad that I am a free man again,” Galkin, 50, told reporters at the Sheremetyevo airport on his return from New York.

He blamed his detention on bureaucratic incompetence.

Galkin, who did not keep his former occupation a secret on his visa application, was arrested at the airport in New York on Oct. 29. He was accused of offering $30,000 in 1990 and 1991 for reports pertaining to America’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or the “Star Wars” defense plan.

Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin raised his case with U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Thursday, appealing to him to limit damage to relations between Washington and Moscow.

A court in Worcester, Mass., later dropped the charges against Galkin. The U.S. Justice Department also issued a statement saying that the CIA had recommended the move in the national interest.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had drawn up a concrete list of U.S. candidates for arrest in Russia in case the United States refused to let Galkin go.