Nomma Zarubina, convicted of lying to the FBI, is the latest Russian woman accused of using her sexual wiles for spying

Nomma Zarubina, 35, now sits in a New York jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last week to charges that she lied to the FBI about her contacts with the FSB, Russia’s biggest domestic intelligence service.

But, in a playbook that comes straight from the cold war, the striking-looking Zarubina – known as “Alyssa” to her Russian handlers – was tasked with meeting prominent Americans in order to lure them into the orbit of Moscow intelligence.

According to US prosecutors, Zarubina attended “seminars, forums and conventions also attended by prominent members of academia, foreign policy, the US government and the media”. Her job was to “identify potentially helpful contacts” in the US and pass them on to the FSB so the agency could invite them to Russia to “convert” them to the “Russian way of thinking”.