2023-04-18 19:53:55
Russian embassies in Europe are equipped with at least 182 satellite dishes, links in a gigantic network of espionage and intelligence gathering, also including a panoply of antennas capable of picking up signals relating to the national security of the countries concerned: this is what nine media outlets from northern and eastern Europe say, which have joined forces to carry out “Espiomats”, a vast investigation, the main results of which were published on Tuesday 18 April.
Collecting a series of satellite images, photos and information provided by drones, the authors scrutinized Russian diplomatic buildings in thirty-nine states, members and non-members of the European Union. It is in Uccle, south of Brussels, that the greatest number of branches have been identified: the Russian Embassy, a gigantic area of 46,000 m² surrounded by 900 meters of fences, has seventeen. The embassies of Sofia, Prague, Belgrade, Madrid, Lisbon and Nicosia each have about ten.
Surprisingly, in Berlin and Paris, journalists only identified eight and three communication and recording systems respectively. No doubt because, as in Warsaw, where no antenna has been spotted, they have been placed elsewhere: the Polish online media Frontstory discovered that the antennas were installed above a residence housing Russian diplomats and employees.
Trompe-l’œil and garden sheds
Trompe-l’oeil were probably also developed in various official buildings. And in some capitals, including Brussels, Berlin, Madrid and Stockholm, structures resembling small garden sheds have appeared on the roofs of embassies in recent years: according to the Dutch-language daily The time, they would hide other devices yet. A drone belonging to “a European intelligence service”what The time does not designate by name, would have managed to penetrate one of these “bubbles”. The media that carried out the investigations therefore believe that their estimate of the importance of the Russian spy network in the embassies is minimal and only accounts for the “tip of the iceberg”.
Satellite dishes, which allow diplomats to exchange confidential and “sensitive” information, can also pick up telephone communications by satellite and their number, particularly in Brussels, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ) and the European institutions, indicates, according to specialists interviewed, that they are part of a large-scale network which intercepts signals intelligence or can be used for computer hacking operations.
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