The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, declared this Friday in an interview with the German newspaper Bild that in recent months there has been expelled several Russian staff from NATO headquarters for alleged espionage. “We realized that they were carrying out activities that were not actually diplomatic work, but intelligence,” Stoltenberg confessed.
In the interview, the leader of the organization stated that the alliance has verified that the Russian secret services “They have been performing in European countries for many years”. “Of course, NATO allies are following this development very closely. And we are also taking a number of measures to make it more difficult for Russian intelligence services to carry out illegal activities between or within NATO allies,” he added.
Regarding the creation of a European army within the Union, Stoltenberg made his position clear: “The EU is not there to defend Europe. “NATO is there to defend Europe.” Thus, he explained that the organization he directs is the “cornerstone of European security” and is fully committed to this task.
[La OTAN sopesa crear un fondo de 100.000 millones de ayuda militar a Ucrania que sobreviva a Trump]
A pressing problem
In the last two years, there is much information that suggests that the presence of Russian spies in Europe has increased in number. For example, some 600 officials from Russian embassies across the continent have been expelled on charges of espionage. At the beginning of the year, Insidera Riga-based investigative website, published a series of articles documenting Russian espionage and influence across Europe.
Among the different revelations, Insider pointed out that a senior adviser to the Bundestag and a MEP of the European Parliament were Russian agents. The MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka, is believed to have been spying for the Kremlin for more than two decades. Ždanoka denied the claims, although she was one of 13 MEPs who in March 2022 voted against a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We are convinced that Ždanoka is not an isolated case,” wrote three Latvian MEPs, citing concerns about suspicious “public interventions, registration[s] voting, organized events, as well as covert activities.
Over the past month, the Czech Republic disabled a Russian influence operation that operated a website called Voice of Europe, which published far-right and populist content. According to Czech authorities, it is believed that the Kremlin used this platform to pay thousands of euros to European politicians.
