[ad_1]
But the leaders have yet to come – at least publicly – to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service.
On Thursday, Western governments made coordinated efforts to unmask what they claimed to be "shameless" efforts by GRU agents to wreak havoc on foreign soil.
At a briefing on Thursday, the Dutch government said it had foiled a "restricted access piracy operation" on the part of the GRU targeting the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. (OPCW), the body monitoring chemical weapons in the world. The Dutch claimed that the four alleged agents were planning to go near a Swiss laboratory accredited by the OPCW, but did not go to their destination because their operations had been intercepted.
The coordinated transfer of information revealed what appeared to be an embarrassing security breach for the GRU. The details of the Dutch briefing were particularly engrossing: the Dutch counterintelligence chief named four alleged Russian GRU officers, noting that two of them had consecutive passport numbers, a potential red flag for the Russian agencies. information.
Then there was the receipt of the taxi: during his arrest, one of the alleged agents had a receipt for a trip to Moscow Sheremetyevo airport from Nesvizkhskiy Pereulok, a road bordering what the Dutch counter intelligence has called GRU complex.
The owner of the taxi company confirmed to CNN that the receipt was genuine, but added that the driver could not remember if any of the named men were passengers. These details fueled online detectives and raised questions among some observers about the level of professionalism of the GRU.
Digital footprints
Unlike Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two Russians appointed by the United Kingdom as suspected of the nerve agent attack that occurred earlier this year in Salisbury, in England, left more digital traces.
So what huge scandal does this have in Russia and how is it going to play? The cases of Petrov and Boshirov prove instructive.
In early September, the British authorities released the names of the two men, claiming that there were GRU agents moving under pseudonyms. After the publication of these names, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the two men as "civilians" and encouraged them to make themselves known.
The following day, the Russian state-owned RT television channel interviewed both men. They admitted to having traveled to Salisbury but denied having worked for the GRU. This prompted the Russian media to insinuate and joke about the sexual orientation of "Boshirov" and "Petrov", as well as their attachment to the Gothic spiers.
Without a doubt, we will learn more in the coming days about the identity of the alleged GRU agents. But the Russian answer was to double the accusations of "false news".
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the British claims as "a fragrant blend of scents," saying that "the rich imagination of our British colleagues knows no bounds, who invents this?"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played the same note on Friday. Western governments, he said, were motivated by "hysteria" and the "phobia of espionage" after the United States, the Netherlands, and Britain publicly declared unmasked intelligence agents.
Admittedly, the latest wave of espionage wars has not been without consequences for Russia. The United States and its allies have expelled dozens of Russian diplomats following the poisoning of Salisbury and fears of Russian interference persist: US lawmakers consider new sanctions to punish Russia for its interference in the elections US.
