Dutch and Belgian journalists, working with the File Middle, an NGO in London, have revealed the identities of 18 extra Russian diplomats expelled from the EU in April on grounds of espionage.
The group of 18 got here from Russia’s embassy in The Hague in addition to its mission on the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) within the Dutch capital.
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Nadezhda Matveev printed a poem about leaving the Netherlands (Photograph: File Middle)
It contains Andrei Vedeneev, a 3rd secretary on the Russian embassy, who was doubtless an FSB home intelligence service officer, File Centre stated, and who was skilled in digital warfare.
It additionally contains commerce attaché Mikhail Milashuk, a suspected GRU navy intelligence officer, who additionally skilled in radioelectronics.
One other expelled commerce attaché and suspected GRU man, Dmitry Pichugin, was a senior policeman in Moscow, the place he was stated to have helped resolve 60 murders and to seek out over 3,000 lacking folks, together with kids.
Ejected commerce attaché Boris Mokrov was a former rocket scientist.
Expelled OPCW mission first secretary Ivan Lykov had studied on the Kirov Navy Medical Academy in Russia and as soon as wrote a thesis on the psychological well being of naval officers.
Two different Russian ‘diplomats’ labored for the SVR international intelligence service, and considered one of them dealt with counter-espionage — detecting Western spies in Russia’s personal ranks in The Hague.
Three navy attachés who have been additionally booted out by Dutch authorities have been GRU officers, considered one of whom, Alexei Druzhin, specialised in safety of labeled data.
The exposures have been first printed by Dutch public tv channel NOS and Belgian newspaper De Tijd on Thursday (13 October).
A number of of the expelled males have been extremely lively on social media regardless of the sensitivity of their roles, serving to File Middle to seek out images and traces of their private lives.
The 18 suspected spies have been a part of a wave of greater than 400 expulsions throughout Europe in response to a Russian bloodbath in Bucha, Ukraine, in April.
EUobserver and File Middle beforehand revealed the names and biographies of 48 suspected spies expelled from Belgium.
The revelations imply they’re unlikely to return to high-level abroad espionage missions in future.
One Russian spy ejected by Lithuania, Fyodor Naumkin, a 3rd secretary on the Russian embassy in Vilnius and a GRU main, was subsequently posted to Abkhazia (a Russia-occupied area in Georgia), as an example.
In the meantime, File Middle’s analysis threw up some curious anecdotes.
A type of expelled from The Hague, third secretary and suspected SVR officer Roman Nefedov, had a distinguished father, for instance.
Nefedov Sr. was a Russian diplomatic courier in Brazil whose van was as soon as attacked by armed bandits whereas travelling from the airport to Rio de Janeiro in 2006. He was robbed of his personal possessions however escaped with the labeled recordsdata he was carrying and earned a Medal for Valour.
Dmitry Barabin, a second secretary in The Hague who was expelled in April, acquired married within the prestigious Beluga restaurant in Moscow, which has a view of the Kremlin, and gave his spouse a suitcase filled with bundles of US {dollars} as a marriage reward, File Middle’s sources stated.
The Dutch additionally kicked out Maxim Matveev, an attaché on the Russian embassy, whose spouse, Nadezhda, wrote poetry beneath the pen identify Eva Matvev.
And one month and a half after her husband and he or she left The Hague she printed a poem, entitled Strikes, which appeared to talk of the way it feels to turn into persona non grata:
“Strikes
Planes, suitcases —
Little which means, a lot drama.
Pity, however is not going to change life:
change of locations and faces.
Strikes, turns
from Saturday to Saturday.
Irrespective of the way you hurry ahead,
you may’t escape from your self”.
