‘1000s’ of Russian spies in U.S., surpassing Cold War record

The Russians are coming? The Russians are here.

America is infested with more Russian spies than at any point in history, say former intelligence agents who spoke with The Post.

“I would say there are a few thousand here,” said Boris Korczak, a former double agent who worked for the CIA, spying on the KGB from 1973-1980.

That’s because each mole is a long shot, and the Russians want to maximize their odds. “Out of 1,000 spies, one or two will perform, will get access to our nuclear secrets,” Korczak said.

PHOTOS: ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY ANNA CHAPMAN

“The current atmosphere in the US is that we’re having a love affair with Russia, that the Cold War is over,” agreed Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA operative who served from 1960-1990. “But there are more Russian spies here now than during the Cold War.”

Among the 10 accused Russian spies taken into custody last week is Anna Chapman, 28, a flame-haired bombshell who, unsurprisingly, has attracted the most attention. She is currently being held in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Brooklyn and her lawyer, Robert Baum, told The Post that she is “very unaware” of the media frenzy she’s sparked.

Chapman, a Russian native who once said her father was a high-ranking member of the KGB, spent her time in New York City circulating among rich and powerful men. In 2002, she married a British student named Alex Chapman, now 30. They divorced in 2006, after she began spending a lot of time without him and with her “Russian friends” instead.

Once in New York, she allegedly began dating a politically connected businessman from New Jersey named Michael Bittan. He refused to comment.

Chapman, who dressed in designer clothes, drank in swank downtown spots such as the Thompson Hotel, had her hair dyed red every week (she’s a natural brunette) and got frequent mani-pedis, was suspected by acquaintances of working as a hooker to fund her expensive tastes.

Korczak believes that Chapman (real name: Anya Kuschenko) was likely schooled by the SVR — Russia’s post-KGB intelligence agency — in the art of seduction.

During the Cold War, “the Soviet Union had a number of schools that trained beautiful women how to lure and satisfy powerful, rich, American men, sexually and intellectually,” he said.

SOME of these schools are located in small towns in the southern part of the country. None appear on a map. They are exact replicas of American suburbs such as Chevy Chase, Md. — just outside Washington, where the bulk of KGB agents were deployed during World War II.

Russian spies-in-training in these towns, Korczak said, “buy groceries at 7-Elevens, eat hamburgers at McDonald’s, watch American TV and go to American movie theaters, get American newspapers delivered every morning and speak only English.”

Once a spy seems suitably Americanized, they are sent to a way station — usually Finland or the Netherlands — where they attempt to pass as American. If they do, they are sent to the United States, almost always as sleepers.

“The Russians are very patient,” Korczak said. “My experience with the CIA was, ‘It has to be here, now, and make a big splash.’ The Russians will wait 15, 20 years — whatever.”

This, he said, explains why the busted ring seems to have accomplished very little in the way of espionage.

“The SVR’s goals are planned and scheduled,” Korczak said. “Those spies would have been able to achieve what they were sent here for — to obtain technology and military secrets, to exert influence on American policy and policymakers. They were well on their way.”

The activities of this ring were so low-key that their objectives seem murky and esoteric.

One couple, Richard and Cynthia Murphy, lived quietly in Montclair, NJ; one alleged spy, Juan Lazario of Yonkers, worked as an economics professor. Another couple, Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley, even registered to vote last year in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Globe.

None was part of any power clique in New York or DC.

What kind of critical national intelligence is to be gained from going to luncheons at Christie’s auction house, as Chapman did? Or by getting your MBA at Columbia, as Cynthia Murphy, 35, did?

The alleged operatives’ normalcy and low-key methodology is in stark contrast to Russian spycraft during World War II, epitomized by the high-profile Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg cases. The OSS — America’s precursor to the CIA — was infiltrated by Russian spies; Stalin knew that we had the atomic bomb before Truman did.

Today’s SVR, however, is preoccupied with lesser goals. “These people are here to be agents of influence, to make connections,” Poteat said. “You want to influence American policy and opinion, including opinions about Russia.”

Also, Korczak said, being a spy is never as thrilling as it seems in the movies: “There are no casinos, no money, [few] beautiful women,” he said. “There is no James Bond. It’s not glamorous at all.”

One accused ring member worked as an op-ed columnist for El Diario, which Poteat said shows how forward-thinking the SVR is. “We’re being flooded with Spanish-speaking people,” he said. “The technique they’re using now is as valid as it was during the Cold War.”

Korczak, however, said that this ring “was a very primitively organized group of people. Anna Chapman was a newbie here. She couldn’t do any damage.”

Chapman kept up a Facebook page with no privacy controls and once filled out a form for a cellphone with the address “99 Fake Street.”

Poteat’s a bit more forgiving: “They’re not perfect, are they?” he said.

WHAT the Russians are primarily after, both experts believe, is our technology. Their own is not much better than it was during the Cold War, when, Poteat said, “you had to get a permit if you wanted to buy a computer or a telephone.”

For this reason, Russian spies are also heavily deployed in Japan: “Technology, technology, technology,” said Korczak.

Britain, France, Poland and Israel are other high priorities, and the Russians are most interested in American policy towards Iran and Israel. As for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Russians “look favorably on our adventures there,” said Korczak, because of what those wars are costing America in blood and treasure.

What the Russians really want, said Korczak, is for America “to break up into three different countries, to stop existing as a superpower.”

“They think we want to kill them,” said Poteat. “Now that Poland is free and looking to the West, they’re scared. They think our anti-ballistic missile system is about getting missiles closer to them. It’s irrational. But then again, they’re irrational people.”

Both said that the United States still shouldn’t discount the sophisticated, worldwide network that is the SVR. This week’s disappearance of alleged paymaster Christopher Robert Metsos from Cyprus, after he was freed on bail, “shows how well Russian intelligence is organized,” Korczak said. “He couldn’t have done it without help.”

As for what will become of Chapman, Poteat and Korczak believe it will be very little. The only crime with which she’s been charged so far is failure to register as a foreign intelligence agent, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. After that, she’ll probably be thrown out of the country. (Nine of the 11 accused have also been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.)

And then, said Korczak, “it will go on and on, as it has since the Chinese invented [espionage] thousands of years ago. We’ll spy on them, and they’ll spy on us.”