Europe Is Once Again Worried About Russian Spies

Yet more house-cleaning this week in the European spy dens as tensions rise among European nations who are now placing bets on the future of Ukraine.

The panic is in full force.

In the UK, Downing Street is expelling a Russian Defense attache believed to be an undeclared military intelligence officer and revoking diplomatic status over some properties in the UK that are believed to be used for Russian intelligence operations.

In Poland, government networks were targeted by Russian cyberspies operating as part of the GRU (Russian military intelligence). The German defense industry was also targeted by the same cyber campaign last week. 

Anxiety was running particularly high in Poland, with officials reporting the discovery of bugging devices in official chambers, though accounts were confused and unconfirmed and in some cases appear to have been walked back.  

Against this backdrop, Polish PM Donald Tusk this week called for a special meeting of the secret services to address the infiltration of the government by Russian and Belarusian forces after the defection to Belarus of a judge suspected of acting on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. The judge defected after an investigation into his activities was launched.  

In Estonia, the Russians have been accused of jamming GPS signals in airspace above the Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). And neighboring Finland is moving military equipment to Norway and Sweden, not that it is a NATO member, most likely to provide some firepower further away as protection against Russia. 

The anxiety has spread across the Atlantic, as well, with two Americans arrested in Russia this month, raising the total to eight American citizens behind bars in Russia at the moment. This week, an American soldier was arrested on theft charges and is being held in pretrial detention. He is being viewed as a likely hostage to add to Moscow’s bartering leverage. A second American was arrested for petty hooliganism. 

In the meantime, by the end of the week, Ukraine had again stepped up drone attacks into Russian territory in border regions (including south of Moscow), though for the most part, the drones were said to have been downed by Russia. More significantly this week, Ukraine resumed attacks on Russian oil refineries, hitting a major facility in the Bashkortostan region. The key significance here is that it was over 900 miles away, making it a longer-range attack that Ukraine has attempted previously.