and in the newspaper and jeff, who does kommersant say that colonel shcherbakov was and what did he do? >> he was the head of american operations for the svr, the russian intelligence service and that's a pretty big job. you can imagine a cia guy running operations russia and defecting to them. this is a very big hit, according to what we hear out of moscow. >> suarez: now the president, president medvedev confirmed the newspaper report. as far as i'm concerned what was published in kommersant was not news. i found out on the day that it happened with all its attributes. can we take him at his word? >> yeah, he must have had-- from laughing i think, according to all the russian experts and journalists i talked to, this was medvedev's direct hit at the head of the svr, and maybe a move, the first opening shot at a move to get him out. >> suarez: so this is internal quarrels inside the leadership circles of the russian state and intelligence? >> that's what the russian journalist experts i talk to say. and of course spy stories are always hidden hands at work. and you've got lots of hidd