{"id":94041,"date":"2021-04-02T06:25:08","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T11:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=94041"},"modified":"2021-04-02T06:25:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T11:25:08","slug":"russian-spies-augment-effort-to-grab-nato-secrets-say-western-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/04\/02\/russian-spies-augment-effort-to-grab-nato-secrets-say-western-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Spies Augment Effort to Grab NATO Secrets, Say Western Officials"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 Russia\u2019s espionage agencies are redoubling efforts to penetrate NATO, Western intelligence officials say, and are focusing on recruiting moles in the defense ministries of the pact\u2019s member states.<\/p>\n

Italy expelled two Russian diplomats this week after they were caught in a parking lot in Rome handing cash to an Italian naval captain in exchange for sensitive military documents, which included NATO files.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old Italian naval officer, Walter Biot, had been working at the Italian Ministry of Defense in Rome for a decade and was attached to the policy unit within the office of the Chief of the Defense Staff. According to the Corriere della Sera<\/em> newspaper, Biot\u2019s unit handled \u201call confidential and classified documents,\u201d including NATO dossiers.<\/p>\n

The Carabinieri, one of Italy\u2019s main law enforcement agencies, said Biot, a father of four, was caught \u201cred-handed\u201d exchanging the documents stored on a flash drive and was being detained on \u201cserious crimes linked to spying and state security.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t Biot\u2019s first meeting with his Russia handlers, according to Italian investigators, and he was paid more than $5,000 each time he met with them.<\/p>\n

His arrest followed months of surveillance by Italy’s domestic intelligence agency AISI, according to an Italian official who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity. He compared the surveillance to the painstaking 2001 counterespionage operation in the United States that unearthed Robert Hanssen, a top FBI counterintelligence agent, as a Russian mole.<\/p>\n

Timing was key<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSenior defense staff were informed of the suspicions about Biot, but it was important that there wasn\u2019t a premature arrest and that he was caught actually handing over classified documents,\u201d he added. \u201cThe Russians seemed mainly interested in NATO secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biot\u2019s arrest came\u00a0just weeks after Bulgaria broke up a military spy ring and expelled a pair of Russian diplomats. The half-dozen Bulgarians arrested, some of them Defense Ministry employees, have been charged with leaking classified NATO and European Union information.<\/p>\n

One of the six Bulgarians\u00a0detained on March 18 made a full confession, according to local media, and reported he was paid $3,000 each time he handed over classified information. The most senior Bulgarian recruit was Ivan Iliev, a former chief of Bulgarian military intelligence. His wife, who is a dual Bulgarian-Russian citizen, was also a member of the ring.<\/p>\n

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\"Italian<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio speaks in Tripoli, Libya, March 25, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Italian government denounced the Russian spying. Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio described the incident as a \u201chostile act of extreme gravity.\u201d He summoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Razov and ordered the expulsion of the diplomats who handed the cash to Biot.<\/p>\n

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab expressed midweek his \u201csolidarity\u201d with Rome and criticized \u201cRussia\u2019s malign and destabilizing activity that is designed to undermine our NATO ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kremlin accents ‘positive’ ties<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Kremlin played down the possibility that the spying allegation could disrupt relations with Italy. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters he hoped \u201cthe very positive and constructive nature of Russian-Italian relations will continue and will be preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moscow is currently negotiating with the Italian government of Mario Draghi to sell Russia\u2019s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. The Russian Embassy in Rome said it \u201cregretted\u201d the expulsions of the two diplomats but withheld threat of any tit-for-tat expulsions of Italian diplomats, despite Russian media reporting that the Kremlin might\u00a0retaliate.<\/p>\n

Eleonora Tafuro, a Russia expert at the ISPI research organization in Milan, told Agence France-Presse the incident \u201creally takes us back to the Cold War period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biot\u2019s wife, Claudia Carbonara, a psychotherapist, told Italian reporters Thursday that her husband was \u201cdesperate\u201d because of the family’s economic situation and said any material he handed over wouldn\u2019t have compromised national security.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had truly been in crisis for some time because he was afraid that he would not be able to face up to all the spending we have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI assure you that he gave the minimum he could give to the Russians. Nothing compromising \u2014 he is not stupid or irresponsible. He was just desperate, desperate about our future and that of our children.\u201d She said the family had \u201cbeen impoverished by COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Dazed and disoriented’<\/strong><\/p>\n

If convicted, Biot faces a minimum of 15 years in prison. On Thursday, he appeared before a magistrate but declined to answer questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he was dazed and disoriented but ready to clarify his position. He asked for time to collect his thoughts,” Roberto De Vita, Biot\u2019s lawyer, said.<\/p>\n

The court declined Biot\u2019s request to be released from jail and to be placed under house arrest.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin\u2019s more muted response to the Biot incident contrasted\u00a0with its reaction to the expulsion last month of Russian diplomats by Bulgaria and to the expulsion in December by the Dutch government of a pair of Russian diplomats.<\/p>\n

Dutch officials alleged the diplomats were spies and had been targeting the high-tech sector and building a \u201csubstantial network of sources\u201d in the industry. The two diplomats were working for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the officials said.<\/p>\n

According to Dutch Interior Minister Karin Ollongren, the Russians targeted companies dealing with artificial intelligence, semiconductors and nanotechnology. Ollongren said the spy network had \u201clikely caused damage to the organizations where the sources are or were active and thus possibly also to the Dutch economy and national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russian Foreign Ministry described the accusations as \u201cunfounded\u201d and warned the decision to expel the diplomats was \u201cprovocative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Biot incident came\u00a0just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin bemoaned \u201cthe unsatisfactory state of Russia-EU ties.\u201d He blamed tense relations on the \u201coften confrontational policies\u201d of Brussels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 Russia\u2019s espionage agencies are redoubling efforts to penetrate NATO, Western intelligence officials say, and are focusing on recruiting moles in the defense ministries of the pact\u2019s member states. Italy expelled two Russian diplomats this week after they were caught in a parking lot in Rome handing cash to an Italian naval captain in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94044,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94041\/revisions\/94044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}