Two unprecedented detentions for espionage: on Tuesday evening a senior officer of the Italian Navy and a Russian soldier stationed in our country were blocked. The frigate captain was stalked in the capital while delivering top secret documents to his colleague on duty at the Rome embassy. According to the indictment, he had just received money in exchange for confidential information. Immediately after the exchange, the carabinieri of the Ros intervened.
The frigate captain was arrested. The legal position of the Russian military, on the other hand, is being evaluated in the light of its diplomatic status. Both are under investigation for crimes of espionage and a threat to state security: they risk a sentence of more than ten years in prison. The Foreign Ministry immediately summoned Ambassador Sergej Razov who – at the request of Minister Di Maio – will be met in the morning by Secretary General Elisabetta Belloni. “On the occasion of the summoning of the Russian ambassador to Italy to the ministry – Minister Di Maio wrote on Facebook – we sent the latter the firm protest of the Italian government and notified the immediate expulsion of the two Russian officials involved in this very serious affair. . I thank our intelligence and all the state apparatuses that work every day for the security of our country “.
The Russian embassy in Rome merely commented: “We confirm the arrest of an official from the office of the Military Attaché. We are verifying the circumstances of the incident. For now we consider it inappropriate to comment. In any case we hope that what is success is not reflected in bilateral relations between Russia and Italy “.
This is a very serious episode, which shows how our country is also involved in the new Russian offensive strategy. In addition to the activities of influence denounced in recent years, such as the disinformation campaigns launched on anonymous social profiles and the news spread by bodies close to the Kremlin to delegitimize the Italian government, now there is the accusation of an openly hostile initiative, such as espionage.
The two were stopped after a long investigation conducted by the Carabinieri del Ros with the collaboration of Aisi, internal intelligence, and the Defense Staff. The names and positions of the officers involved are not yet known. According to the first rumors, the reasons for the betrayal would be of an economic nature: the Italian military would have agreed to sell classified information in exchange for money, probably to face serious family problems.
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The frigate captain would have been on duty in the Defense Staff, the command of all the armed forces based in via XX Settembre: a position that would have allowed him to access a wide range of materials both on the activity of our Defense , and that of the Atlantic Alliance.
In recent history there are no precedents of this kind. The last counter-espionage operation dates back to 1989, before the fall of the Wall, and concerned the plans of the Warsaw Pact to steal documents from the Oto Melara in La Spezia, engaged in the production of guns and armored vehicles, and from a Trieste-based company that collaborated in the project of a NATO communications system. At the time, arrest warrants were issued against five people, including two alleged KGB agents and one of Bulgarian intelligence. But the three foreigners and a former carabiniere deserted in Sofia managed to escape arrest.
Since then Italy had always appeared as the chessboard where pawns from other countries challenged each other, a sort of free port for international plots, where to move confused among tourists and the abundance of embassies. In May 2016, the trap was set in Trastevere against a Portuguese intelligence executive who was meeting Sergej Nicolaevich Pozdnjakov, a Russian official with a diplomatic passport, to sell him action plans of the Atlantic Alliance. The arrest had provoked a tug-of-war with the Moscow authorities who contested the Portuguese arrest warrant and reaffirmed the diplomatic protection of their compatriot. A thesis later recognized by the Italian judiciary, which after two months released Pozdnjakov.
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At the end of last August the most sensational episode. A French lieutenant colonel serving in the NATO command in Naples. The capture, which took place while the officer was at home for the holidays, had been conducted by the French services and the nature of his collaboration with Russia remained top secret.
On the other hand, until the invasion of Crimea, relations between Italy and Russia have always been excellent, with close collaboration against the common enemy of Islamist terrorism. So much so that a production company close to the FSB, the Russian secret service heir to the KGB, had financed an action film in which Moscow agents saved the Italian premier from an Al Qaeda attack, played by an actor very similar to Silvio. Berlusconi.
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