Some countries, such as the UK, are confident they have reduced Russian capacity significantly, with agent numbers in Britain in the low single digits, according to one senior Whitehall official. Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreyev, on March 23 after Warsaw expelled 45 diplomats © Radek Pietruszka/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock And Poland declared 45 Russian diplomats personae non gratae, alleging all to be using diplomatic cover to undertake intelligence work. In addition to the Slovak defenestration, three Baltic states and Bulgaria announced expulsions of 20 alleged Russian agents in total. Several countries still rely on US and UK intelligence gathering because of restrictions on domestic surveillance and a lack of resources.Ī round of expulsions this month points to the scale of the problem. “For many years there has been a conspiracy of silence, with western powers reluctant to talk about Russian activities or even go after them.”Įight serving European intelligence officials and diplomats interviewed by the Financial Times said Russia’s covert operations in Europe had been expanding at a rate that counter-espionage efforts have struggled to match. “What we know about is almost certainly the tip of the iceberg,” said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow of the Russia programme at Chatham House. But many countries are still playing catch-up with Moscow’s undercover activity on their soil. Keeping track of the Kremlin’s espionage activity in the west has become an even more urgent task since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended Europe’s security order. Though Garbar - a well-connected, muckraking blogger - was a lowly target, the Russian’s other recruits were not: Solomasov’s network included a Slovak colonel and a senior official in counter-intelligence. On March 14, Solomasov was one of three Russians expelled from Slovakia “for acting in contravention of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations”.
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