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Elizaveta Mukasei, Soviet Spy, Is Dead at 97

MOSCOW (Agence France-Presse) — Elizaveta Mukasei, a Soviet spy who was half of one of the most famous husband-and-wife duos in the history of espionage, died here Saturday. She was 97.

Her death was announced by Sergei Ivanov, spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, in a statement published by Russian news agencies.

From the 1940s until the late 1970s, Ms. Mukasei worked with her husband, Mikhail, on a string of undercover operations abroad. They used the code names Zephyr, which was Mikhail’s, and Elza, which was Elizaveta’s, and such was the delicacy of their work that the modern successor to the K.G.B. has yet to disclose the full details of their operations.

Her death came soon after that of her husband, who died in August 2008 at the age of 101.

Ms. Mukasei spent most of her working life as “nelegal,” a Russian term for spies who worked undercover in the West during the cold war and sent intelligence back to Moscow.
Read entire article at NYT