Why U.S. and Russian Spies Don’t Kill Each Other—And What Happens If They Do

 

In the spy game, the deadliest rule is the one nobody admits exists.

     There’s a quiet rule in the world of espionage. No treaty. No handshake. No official memo stamped and filed away in some vault at CIA headquarters. And yet it’s been understood for decades by their counterparts in Moscow, whether in the FSB or the GRU.

     Spies don’t kill spies.

     That might sound strange if your mental image comes from movies or novels. In fiction, intelligence officers drop each other with silencers in dark alleys and vanish into the night. My spy thriller Payback leans into that tension, with a Russian assassin hunting CIA operatives and turning the shadows lethal. It works because it breaks the rule. And breaking that rule feels dangerous.

     In real life, the game is colder. More controlled. More calculated.

     When American and Russian intelligence officers cross paths overseas, the goal isn’t elimination. It’s containment. If a CIA officer is identified, Russian operatives don’t reach for a weapon. They watch. Closely. Every meeting, every pattern, every contact. Surveillance teams map the network like a puzzle. Who is this officer talking to? Which local sources are in play? Where are the vulnerabilities?

     Sometimes the pressure becomes obvious. A tail that’s just a little too visible. A “random” encounter that isn’t random at all. It’s a message: we see you. Once that happens, the officer is effectively compromised. Their usefulness drops to near zero.

     From there, the endgame is familiar. Exposure. Diplomatic complaints. Maybe a quiet word to the host country. Then the formal step: persona non grata. Expulsion. A flight home.

     It’s not mercy. It’s strategy.

     The restraint holds because both sides know what happens if it breaks. If one service starts killing the other’s officers, payback is almost guaranteed. One killing can become a pattern fast, and once that starts, it’s hard to stop.

     There’s also the risk of escalation. Espionage sits in the gray zone between peace and war. Governments put up with it because everybody does it. But murdering accredited officers, especially those under diplomatic cover, can push the game into something far more serious.

     Just as important, spy services like predictability. Surveillance, recruitment, deception, arrests, expulsions, and spy swaps are all part of a language both sides understand. Violence brings chaos. It makes officers harder to control, governments quicker to react, and mistakes more likely.

     For the United States, there’s another line. Executive Order 12333 formally bars U.S. intelligence from assassination. That doesn’t end espionage, of course. It shapes how it’s done.

     So the real understanding isn’t moral. It’s self-protection. Each side accepts espionage as inevitable and punishes it through counterintelligence instead of routine murder. The system is hostile, but it has limits.

     Still, any unwritten rule invites the obvious question: has it ever been broken?

     The closest case people usually mention is Freddie Woodruff, a CIA officer shot and killed near Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1993. Georgian authorities called it a random killing and convicted a local suspect. Later, some former officials and writers raised the possibility of a Russian-linked operation.

     But that’s still disputed. It has never been proven to be an official Russian intelligence assassination of an active American officer. And that uncertainty matters. Because if Russian intelligence had crossed that line and kept crossing it, the shadow war would look a lot darker.

     The line is clearest when it comes to serving officers in the field. Outside that category, things get darker. Russia has been widely accused of targeting defectors, former intelligence figures, and dissidents abroad. Those cases involve people Moscow may see as traitors or political threats. They’re not quite the same as killing active CIA, FSB, or GRU officers within the usual rules of the spy game.

     Inside that game, the preferred tools are quieter. Arrest the asset. Flip the source. Break the network. Expose the officer. Expel them. Damage the operation without starting an assassination war.

     That’s what makes Payback so unsettling. A Russian assassin hunting CIA operatives blows up the rulebook. Suddenly, being watched isn’t just being watched. Being exposed isn’t just career-ending. It could get you killed. Tradecraft isn’t enough. Trust disappears fast.

     And in real life, that’s exactly what both sides usually try to avoid.

     U.S. and Russian intelligence live in managed hostility. They spy, deceive, recruit, disrupt, and expose. They play a long, careful game in the dark.

     But both sides know the price of going too far.

     So the line holds. Not officially. Not perfectly. But enough that when a spy thriller sends an assassin across it, something feels badly wrong.

     And that’s where the real chill begins.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.