site.btaSeveral Active, Ex-Service Persons Detained on Suspicions of Spying for Russia

March 19 (BTA) - Five Bulgarian military, both on active
duty and former ones, have been detained on suspicion of passing
 classified information to a foreign State in what Prosecutor
General's Spokesperson Siika Mileva described as a "spy ring".
The wife of one of them, who has  Bulgarian and Russian
citezenship, was also detained in the case.

The alleged ring leader formerly held a senior position in
military intelligence. He had been trained in Bulgaria and,
later on, at GRU in Moscow. He had worked as instructor at
Bulgaria's military intelligence. According to the prosecuting
magistracy, he was tasked with building a clandestine agent
network. He recruited persons who had access to classified
information concerning NATO and the EU. His wife was also part
of the ring. She acted as a go-between her husband and a Russian
 Embassy official, and passed documents and money. Her visits to
 the Russian Embassy, where she was treated with respect, have
been documented.

At a news briefing on Friday, the media were shown footage of
the ring leader's wife entering the Russian Embassy on several
occasions and conversations between the two. The other ring
members supplied the requisite information and thus endangered
Bulgaria's national security, Mileva said. Part of the
recruitees were trained in spycraft by the ringleader. One ring
member is a senior Defence Ministry official who was involved in
 the Ministry's planning and budgeting. The other is a military
intelligence officer. He compiled information on hybrid threats
and risks, including from Russia. The third ring member is a
military intelligence officer, who had been sent to overseas
missions with contingents. The fourth ring member is a former
military intelligence officer, who has been posted as a
secretary, military attache and defence attache abroad and
director of the classified information registry of the National
Assembly.

The ring leader used to meet with the rest at restaurants, in
public places, in his car or at sports events. The rendezvous
were arranged in advance, with back-up dates and venues. He
instructed the recruitees on storing the classified information
on special memory cards, and the telephones they used to take
pictures of documents were disguised as gifts.

To smuggle out information, the spies even filmed their computer
 screens, which lasted for hours.

"The investigation is crucial for the security of Bulgaria, the
EU, NATO and the US. This is the first such case since 1944,"
Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev said.

The detention operation began in several locations in Sofia on
Thursday, with police units dispatched to Trakia Motorway and
several parts of the city.

"The Minister of Defence and the Chief of Military Intelligence
take special credit for the progress of the investigation,"
Geshev said.

"We have started to forget to love our country. We have started
to forget to be Bulgarophiles, to defend our national interest
and not sell it for peanuts," the Prosecutor General pointed
out.

The Foreign Ministry issued a statement to hail the operation.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria
welcomes the concerted efforts of the prosecution service, the
State Agency for National Security, the Military Information
Service and the Ministry of Interior to detect yet another case
of gathering information, constituting a State secret, to the
benefit of the Russian Federation," the Foreign Ministry said in
 a press release on Friday.

"This is not the first time that we are witnessing actions of
foreign embassies which are incompatible with the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and we treat these cases as
inadmissible," the Ministry stated. "The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs will continue to follow the established international
practice when such cases are detected," the press release reads.
 NV/LG

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