Pretty sure it was the normal call center lady who handles all their messages. She’s the lady whose house Philip went to when he was waiting for Martha to call when she was running and the call lady fed him borscht.
And earlier she was shown be using their communications room to send coded messages back to Moscow; Arkady needed the room for something tried to order her out and she apologetically overrode him & told him to call some general in Moscow.
Kgb/GRU turf wars.
I’VE GOT IT.
Next ep, E simply turns up at Don’s house at dinnertime. Wife is thrilled to see her, Don just about strokes out. E says she had to take a trip (meaningful look to Don). In the kitchen wife tells E Don is acting weird. E says she’ll talk to him.
When alone, Don says WTF?! E plays innocent - I just had an abortion. When Don mentions the visit, she pleads ignorance, saying she is an only child and her parents are dead.
The field is clear for P to approach Don. Nope, he never met E - just saw the opportunity to take advantage of. Now which would Don like him to blow up first - his marriage or his job? Or maybe a little Level 4 access behind Door # 3…
What do you think? Should I quit my day job? 
Tatiana and Arkady are both KGB. Or did I miss something?
I think you should write the pilot for a spinoff show about the adventures of Mail Robot.
Thinking that through I kind of assumed Gabriel must report to her at the Rezentura for the bio-warfare stuff, and she must also be the handler from grumpy pants stuck on level 3.
I’m pretty sure that Gabriel is the handler for grumpy pants. He and Philip have discussed him and there was the time that he contacted P and E rather than Gabriel which was the cause for some concern. I do agree that she is running the bio stuff but Gabe is running the spies.
Hence my thinking that she is GRU. That would be under military purview. P+E are simply doing “detached duty” for that particular assignment.
“Grumpy Pants”? Ha ha. Grumpy pants, grumpy pants. What are they feeding you?
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Are you saying Tatiana is GRU because acquiring the virus pertains to biological warfare? Or is it something else?
Ostensibly, she is in Department 12 (the secretive department tasked with biological espionage), which is part of Directorate S, which is KGB.
I don’t think there is much (if any) mixing of the rezidentura spies who have official cover like Arkady, Oleg, etc and the illegals with non official cover like Philip, Elizabeth, Gabriel etc.
Wrong again Slacker 
I was musing on what used to be called ‘field agents’, and who now seem to be called ‘illegals’.
They report, there is a hierarchy. They report to the ‘office’.
I don’t know what you mean by “mixing” but Arkady is clearly the boss of the office - certainly of Oleg, who’s interest is technology. We are told Department 12 has autonomy from that structure.
I think this is incorrect.
Arkady is in charge of the embassy, including Oleg. But he reports up to their foreign office/state department (somewhere in Moscow).
The illegals report up to the Centre, which is also somewhere in Moscow and probably under a different department. They’re not under Arkady’s jurisdiction or chain of command.
There are two separate heirarchies in place. Think CIA which is not underneath the State Department.
This is all true but there was some mixing. Recall that Philip found Arkady at a magazine stand and asked him to send a message to keep Paige out of the business.
He (Arkady) probably relays a lot of their instructions (through the dummy phone system) so it looks like he’s in charge of them, but he really isn’t. But then he was ready to start telling Nina about the “illegals” program when she had her attack of conscience, so maybe.
Arkady probably wears multiple hats. He has an “official” job, that the Sovs tell us is what he does, and then there’s the spy stuff too.
But the CIA in Moscow was out of the embassy.
And that was under extreme circumstances, it couldn’t have been protocol. Philip only tracked him down to deliver the threat that if anyone ever approaches Paige, he will quit. That’s how important the matter is it him, that he would break protocol and risk exposure to deliver that threat.
I mean I’m not an expert on espionage procedures, but it just doesn’t make much sense to have your illegals have any kind of normal or regular contact with those who have official cover.
It was most certainly not protocol and it was extreme but Philip knew that he could get a message to the right people. Also he said something like “I’m Phillip Jennings” and Arkady knew immediately who that was.
Sorry, no: you would be the wrong one. You were peddling that idea that Don was going to turn out not to even be involved with the germ warfare lab at all, and I quite correctly scoffed at the notion of that “twist”.
I seriously doubt he does any work to speak of at his “official” job (Director of Cultural Affairs, or whatever it was).