... During 2009, the SVR- directed CYNTHIA MURPHY, the defendant , to " strengthen...ties w. classmates on daily basis in cl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info , " and to "[r]eport to C[enter] on their detailed personal data and character traits w. preliminary conclusions about their potential (vulnerability) to be recruited by Service ."In response, and on many occasions, the New Jersey Conspirators conveyed names of University affiliates to Center - which then conducted checks in "C'sdatabase" to determine if a particular potential "target" was or was not "clean. "Thus, for example, when an SVR database check revealed that a particular contact of CYNTHIA MURPHY's had been suspected by a then- Sovietbloc intelligence service of belonging to a "foreign spy net[work] ,"MURPHY was told" to avoid deepening contact with them for sec[urity] reasons."...

I am guessing that the untold story behind the here is that the FBI tried to insert itself in some manner into the ring (for example, posing as contacts), but someone in the ring became suspicious. In which case the FBI may have screwed up - a much much better outcome would be to have the ring continue under surveillance. So why did the FBI attempt this? Apart from the possibility of providing misleading information to the SVR, another useful possibility is to find out the SVR thought about certain individuals (i.e. are they 'clean').