CNN reports that suspected spies tracking Russian defectors and their families in the United States were among the 60 Russian diplomats President Trump expelled last month as a sign of solidarity with the UK after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England in March.
In at least one instance, suspected Russian spies were believed to be casing someone who was part of a CIA program that provided new identities to protect resettled Russians, the officials said.
That episode and other US intelligence raised concerns that the Russians were preparing to target Russian émigrés in the US labeled by the Kremlin as traitors or enemies, law enforcement and intelligence officials said.
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Officials in both the US and UK have warned that the Russian government appears emboldened to carry out assassinations in western Democracies.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee produced a report earlier this year raised the issue of the suspicious deaths of more than two dozen critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin during his time in power. The Russian security services are suspected in many of the deaths, the report said, noting a Russian law passed "in July 2006 that permits the assassination of 'enemies of the Russian regime' who live abroad."
"The trail of mysterious deaths, all of which happened to people who possessed information that the Kremlin did not want made public, should not be ignored by Western countries on the assumption that they are safe from these extreme measures," said the Senate Democrats in their report.
Exclusive: Expelled spies included Russians suspected of tracking compatriots who resettled in US (CNN)