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After majoring in Soviet Government at university, Justin Lifflander arrived in Russia in 1987 as a driver-mechanic for the US embassy in Moscow. A year later, he moved to Votkinsk in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, where he inspected missiles at a production plant as part of the INF nuclear disarmament treaty between the US and the USSR.

There he met a young woman assigned to keep an eye on him for the local KGB.

After his stint as a weapons inspector, Lifflander moved back to Moscow, got married, and worked as an executive for Hewlett-Packard Russia for twenty years. He then served as the business editor for the Moscow Times daily newspaper from 2010 to 2014 and authored several articles about Russian-American relations, the tragicomedy of life in Russia, and cigars. He now holds American and Russian citizenships and resides in Moscow with his wife, son, and mother-in-law.