Russian spies reveal true identities

A couple detained in the US-Russia spy scandal confessed to being Russian citizens living under fake identities, according to AFP, as prosecutors prepared to reveal new evidence of the 11 suspects' alleged conspiracy against the US government.

The government said its charges were now backed by "well over" 100 decrypted messages between conspirators, compared with just a handful of other such messages presented earlier.

Suspects "Michael Zottoli" and "Patricia Mills" - a married couple ordered by a judge in Alexandria to be kept detained along with suspect Mikhail Semenko - confessed in post-arrest statements that their given names were fake and that they were Russian citizens, the prosecutors said.

"Zottoli" admitted his true name was Mikhail Kutzik and that his real birth date was different than the one given under his cover, they said, with "Mills" confessing her real name to be Natalia Pereverzeva.

Both have family members still living in Russia, they said.

The court was unlikely to grant the three suspects even temporary freedom, with US authorities still sweating over the disappearance in the spy saga of the eleventh suspect, Christopher Metsos, who was arrested in Cyprus but vanished after posting a 26,500-euro ($32,330) bond and surrendering his passport.

In total, 10 suspects were arrested in a swoop a week ahead of the Independence Day holiday, when US patriotism runs at an all-time high, purported to be "deep cover" agents.

The dramatic arrests came after a threat to the decade-long US investigation, a report said Saturday.

"Something happened that was going to affect them all," a senior law enforcement official told The Washington Post, saying the arrests were required to "protect the cases," without disclosing exactly what prompted the decision.

As US investigators continue to probe a suspected Russian spy ring, intelligence officials in the UK continue to probe any British links to the suspects. There could be as many as 300 Russian spies still operating in the UK alone, according to Sky news.

Separately, Britain's three main intelligence agencies could face pressure to merge in the coming years in response to spending curbs and an accelerating trend toward joint operations, Reuters cited a historian of espionage as saying.

"There are obviously economies of scale," author Richard Aldrich said of the Government Communications Headquarters, the Secret Inteligence Service, or MI6, and the Security Service, or MI5.

Agencies