Sexy spy to lead Vladimir Putin Youth group

Anna Chapman, the Russian sleeper agent at the centre of a spy ring in the US, is to become a leader of the youth wing of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, according to reports in Moscow.

Russian media said Chapman would be appointed at a congress of Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard) in the capital tomorrow.


Agent 90-60-90: Anna Chapman has posed semi-naked for men's magazines

"Chapman will become the head of one of the new governing bodies of Molodaya Gvardiya," said a source in the organisation.

Chapman, (28), would be assigned work with "patriots and young business people".

Nationalist youth groups like Molodaya Gvardiya are seen by the Kremlin as an essential tool in attempts to suppress "the orange scenario" a reference to mass protests known as the orange revolution that forced a change in Ukraine's leadership in 2005.

Putin, the prime minister, has already expressed his admiration for Chapman who was exposed and ejected from the US in June. In July, he got together with the spies who were never formally accused of espionage to sing nostalgic Soviet songs.

Molodaya Gvardiya is a fanatically pro-Putin youth group that fell under suspicion last month, when newspaper reporter Oleg Kashin was beaten close to death with an iron bar outside his home in Moscow.

Chapman was not available for comment. She has given no in-depth interviews but has posed semi-naked for men's magazines.