As reported by The Wall Street Journal
The expulsion of 43 Russian diplomats from four European countries on Tuesday was part of a push to disrupt Russian intelligence networks in Europe and didn’t result from a specific threat, people familiar with the situation said.
A senior European diplomat said that a number of European capitals had been coordinating a pushback against the Kremlin’s intelligence networks in the bloc since Russian forces invaded Ukraine last month and that further expulsions could follow in coming days.
On Tuesday, Belgium said it was kicking out 21 Russian officials; the Netherlands said it was expelling 17, while Ireland told four officials to leave the country, and the Czech Republic, one.
In separate statements, the four EU governments said the officials being ordered to leave posed a national-security threat through spying and influence operations, without providing further details. The names of the officials weren’t released.
“Together with our allies, we are reducing the Russian intelligence presence in the EU,” the Czech Foreign Ministry said.
Russia called the allegations unfounded and promised to take reciprocal measures.
Tuesday’s expulsions lifted the total number of Russian diplomats kicked out of EU countries since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to over 100. Poland said it was expelling 45 people last week, while Bulgaria and the three Baltic states ordered 20 officials out of their countries earlier this month.
“There was no specific incident,” said the senior European diplomat. “We did it to decrease the number of spies so that they are not able to operate efficiently” in Europe.
Some of the bloc’s smaller member states, which have only a few diplomats in Moscow, have refrained from expulsions out of fear that tit-for-tat removals could effectively close their embassies in Russia, cutting direct lines of communication with the Kremlin at a time of heightened tensions, the diplomat said.
Russia stands accused of a series of intelligence plots in recent years in Europe, all of which it has denied.
In March 2018, the poisoning with chemical weapons of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, in the British town of Salisbury, led the U.S., the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and many other countries to expel more than 150 Russian diplomats in a bid to stymie Russian hybrid threats. Moscow responded by expelling almost 200 Western officials.
Later in 2018, Dutch and U.K. security officials foiled an alleged cyberattack in The Hague on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body that had helped investigate the Salisbury chemical-weapons attack. Last year, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats after the government said that Russia was behind a 2014 explosion that killed two people at an arms depot.
A German court in December ruled that Russia was behind the killing of a Chechen dissident in Berlin. After the decision, Berlin expelled two Russian diplomats and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the killing would “weigh heavily” on the two countries’ ties.
European intelligence officials have warned over the last year that Russian intelligence activity has increased. The head of Germany’s leading domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, said last summer that Russian spying activity in Germany was at Cold War levels.
Jonathan Eyal, associate director at the Royal United Services Institute, a security and defense think tank in London, said the rebuilding of Russian intelligence networks should come as no surprise. He said whenever a Russian intelligence official is kicked out, another one is sent.
“Effectively, there is a one-for-one swap,” Mr. Eyal said.
Image source: Istock