Russian spies file

According to court documents unsealed Monday, June 28th, the FBI arrested 11 people last week in a case related to Russian spies. The documents says that the alleged spies were on 'long-term deep-cover assignments.'

The arrested people have been serving for years as deep cover secret agents of Russia's SVR intelligence agency, with the goal of penetrating US government policymaking circles.

A Justice department official said, they were not assigned to collect classified, secret information, but were allegedly tasked to learn about a broad swath of topics including nuclear weapons, US arms control positions, positions on Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, congress and political parties.

The justice department developed a secret investigation maintained over several years. This investigation used extensive surveillance of communications and wiretaps, including putting listening devices into the homes of the accused.

The Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, , said his country is awaiting an explanation from the US over the arrests.

"The subject was not explained to us. I hope they will explain," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying on Tuesday.