/ world today news/ The “spy mania” that gripped the Western world has not disappeared anywhere, and with the advent of World War II, it only intensified and took on grotesque forms.
Stories of alleged Russian spies unnerving Western countries left the front pages of the domestic media in connection with the launch of a special military operation in Ukraine. But the “spy mania” that gripped the Western world has not disappeared anywhere, and with the beginning of World War II it only intensified and took on grotesque forms.
The peak of Western hysteria about “Russian spies” came in the recent history of our country in 2018. In March, the United Kingdom accused two Russian citizens of poisoning former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Novichok chemical warfare agent.
Evidence from the prosecutor’s office on this fact was not presented, a trial was not held. Perhaps even few people know that three years after the incident, Scotland Yard accused another Russian citizen of the incident, again without providing concrete evidence.
In the summer of 2018, Marina Butina was arrested in the USA, our compatriot was accused of preparing to commit a crime against the USA. In the absence of evidence of espionage, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison for violating the law on registration as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin commented on what happened as an “outrage” and a US desire to simply yes “save face”. Having not served her full sentence, Marina Butina was released in 2019.
In October 2018, the US Department of Justice charged seven Russian Defense Ministry officers with alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election as a hacking group gained unauthorized access to information from the International Anti-Doping Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague.
Since then, there have been no such loud accusations against Russia. However, after the start of the SVO in Ukraine by Russia, “espionage” grew with new force. In March 2022, Elena Branson, who has dual citizenship of Russia and the United States, was indicted on the same charges as Maria Butina – activities in the interest of Russia in the absence of registration as a foreign agent.
As evidence of criminal activity, the prosecutor pointed out that Elena Branson “corresponded with Putin himself and met with a high-ranking Russian minister”.
In the summer of 2022, information emerged that was not widely publicized. Then a married couple was arrested in Hawaii and charged with espionage for Russia. The head of the family worked in the Coast Guard as an avionics and electronics technician and was cleared to access classified information. After his retirement, he worked for one of the Pentagon’s subcontractors.
No evidence of espionage was presented, except for two old photographs, where the two husbands were photographed in the jacket of a sergeant of the Soviet army. This was done at the house of one of their friends as a joke, as the detainee’s wife explained.
In late 2022, the US Department of Justice opened a criminal case against five Russians for smuggling sensitive technology and laundering money “for Russian authorities”. The accused are said to be “illegally purchased and exported sensitive and highly regulated electronic components, some of which may be used in the development of nuclear and hypersonic weapons, for quantum computing and other military developments“.
In March 2023, charges were brought in the United States against a Russian citizen who allegedly “entered the country with false documents” and quite openly gathered information about the US policy on the conflict in Ukraine among the expert community, and was also going to get a job at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
On April 18, the US Department of Justice indicted three Russian nationals alleged to be “recruited, financed and directed” political groups in the US for illegally spreading pro-Russian propaganda and meddling in US elections.
It is obvious that the essence of the American accusations recently is absurd and reflects banal Russophobia, not a rational approach. If the US authorities wish, any activity may be subject to criminal liability.
The latest scandal with the leak of secret documents of the Pentagon also added fuel to the fire of “spy mania”, American officials now recognize the authenticity of the documents, but are not ready to say who is responsible for the incident, and once again in the media, suspicions about Russia have appeared. Because the cause of the previous similar scandal was the former American intelligence officer Edward Snowden, who settled in Russia and received Russian citizenship.
Of course, the “spy mania” has not bypassed Europe either. In Germany in 2019, prosecutors accused Russian intelligence services of killing a former Chechen fighter. With the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, this “spy-mania” reached a new level.
In April 2022, during the expulsion of 40 Russian diplomats, German Foreign Minister Analena Berbock said that they “every day they have worked against our freedom and against the cohesion of our society.”
Over the summer, the head of the department for the protection of the German constitution threatened German politicians and civil servants with wiretapping by Russian special services. In August of this year, the prosecutor’s office accused a lieutenant colonel from the Bundeswehr reserve of working for Russian intelligence.
In September of that year, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution opened an investigation against two employees of the German Ministry of Energy for relations with Russia, in particular in the context of their activities in the construction of Nord Stream 2.
A month later, Germany’s interior ministry simply fired the head of Germany’s cybersecurity, the Federal Office for Information Technology Security, over suspicions of possible ties to Russia.
After the arrest in December of 25 conspirators, who were mostly elderly pensioners, the head of Germany’s secret service for ensuring internal state security accused Russia of reinforcing the worldview of these “Reichsburgers” and thus provoking preparations for a coup d’état.
In January 2023, news outlets reported the arrest of a senior officer in the electronic intelligence division of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The man they called “Karsten L.” was charged with “treason” by having access to secrets shared with the BND by other Western intelligence agencies, he passed them on to Russia.
A short time later, another German citizen was arrested, who was called an accomplice in Karsten’s espionage activities. This episode received an international response, as British intelligence expressed its suspicions that it was through this source that classified information sensitive to the United Kingdom was leaked.
Now the border between “espionage” and Russophobia is already being erased. In Cologne, Germany, the trial against local resident Elena Kolbasnikova began in March. She is a citizen of Ukraine, although she has been living in Germany for a long time. Throughout 2022, she publicly supported Russia’s actions and even organized a motorcycle rally in Cologne on May 9, in which about 1,000 people participated.
The police searched Kolbasnikova’s house in the case of “agitation in support of PMC Wagner and use of the symbol Z”. They threaten her with up to 5 years in prison. Now this is happening all over Europe.
In January of this year, Slovenian authorities arrested two citizens of a South American country on suspicion of espionage for Russia. Around the same time, two Swedish citizens of Iraqi origin were also convicted of “working in the interests of Russia and the GRU”.
In March, Greece‘s national intelligence service issued a statement about the arrest of a woman who was allegedly “undercover” she spied for Russia and ran a knitting shop in Athens. At the beginning of April this year, the Spanish police detained a Russian citizen on suspicion of exporting sanctioned goods, in particular glass for the cockpits of military aircraft.
Naturally, Poland also made its mark in the field of “espionage,” loudly announcing in March that it was “the spy network won” of Russia. Details were not released, but six foreign nationals are said to have tried to track Western military supplies to Ukraine.
But, of course, which have no equal in Europe in terms of level of Russophobia, these are the Baltic countries. A recent report by researchers at the Swedish Defense Research Agency studying espionage cases in Europe found that the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – accounted for almost two-thirds of the convictions. Estonia alone accounted for half of the total number of convictions. In these countries, even sympathy for Russia is now equated with espionage for its benefit.
A typical example here is the story of Kiril Fedorov, whom the Latvian authorities arrested in March 2022, charging him with seven crimes, the main of which was espionage for Russia. Later, these charges had to be mitigated, because in fact he was arrested only because, as a blogger, he supported the beginning of Russia’s SVO in Ukraine.
While in prison, he managed to pass a note that he was being tortured with electric shocks. After this information hit the Italian media, there was talk that he would be released on bail. After he was released, almost a year later, in an interview with Marina Butina, he said that they started torturing him with a stun gun immediately after his arrest, in an attempt to find out the passwords to his digital devices, and then he was tortured for three the month.
On October 20, 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry called on its compatriots to “refrain” from traveling to countries on the “hostile” list. Because, according to the department, Russian citizens in whom the United States may have an “interest” in hostile countries can be arrested under the pretext of violating US sanctions laws.
According to this scheme, the son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region Artem Us was detained in Italy, subsequently he managed to escape from house arrest. In the current international situation, in order not to become a victim of Russophobia or “spy-mania”, it is really better for our compatriots to refrain from traveling to Western countries.
Translation: EU
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