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Засада, or "zasada", is the Russian word for ambush.

I can now say that I am being spied on by Russians and it's all very 70's Zhivago Cold War realness.

Yesterday some new people from the client's HQ in Moscow arrived, without warning, to run our project. In one day we have already received a bunch of vague questions and mixed messages and I'm yet to work out what they mean.

Last night when I was asked to attend a client meeting in hte evening. I arrived in the boardroom to see the Russian CEO, Russian CMO, Russian CIO, Russian COO, two Russian consultants and one Vietnamese local (clearly a double agent).

They sat me down in a central chair across from the CEO. He smiled, leaned forward and said "So, Tony, tell us how your workshops are going ...".  It was such a silly cliché but at the same time too scary to giggle about in the moment.

I leaned back and maintained eye contact. I resisted the urge to ask for a cigarette and a phone call. I tried to quickly guess his agenda and took a deep breath. I decided to take the "you probably think things arre not progressing well" assumption and launched into my spiel: "Well it's perfectly natural to feel a bit anxious at such an early stage of the project ...". 

Take your Засада and shove it up your arse, Boris.