NATO has expelled suspected Russian spies from its Brussels headquarters

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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: “NATO is there to defend Europe”

Photo: Omar Havana / Getty Images

In recent years, NATO has fired and expelled suspected Russian spies from its headquarters in Brussels. »We have expelled Russian personnel from NATO headquarters. We discovered that they were carrying out activities that were not actually diplomatic work, but rather intelligence work," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with the "Bild" newspaper. »The NATO allies have done similar things. This is an issue that is being raised among NATO allies,” he added.

Stoltenberg did not provide any specific information about the time frame or the number of expulsions in the interview. NATO later announced that the dismissals were incidents from previous years.

»Of course, the NATO allies are following this development very closely. “And we are also taking some measures to make it more difficult for Russian secret services to carry out illegal activities between or within NATO allies,” Stoltenberg continued.

Strack-Zimmermann: “Espionage is the rule”

The FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told SPIEGEL about the placement of Russian agents in NATO headquarters: "It is no surprise that there are Russian spies not only in the individual countries, but also at the heart of the NATO administration. Espionage is the rule, not the exception.”

In recent years, Germany and Europe have been “much too carefree, almost naive” when it comes to security policy, said the chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag. "We must take much better precautions against espionage not only in Germany, but throughout NATO," she demanded. Espionage is part of the toolbox of hybrid warfare in countries like Russia and other autocracies and dictatorships. “We have to put aside our lack of knowledge and finally take decisive action against it,” said Strack-Zimmermann.

Kiesewetter speaks of an “offensive-aggressive system”

Roderich Kiesewetter, deputy chairman of the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Committee, was not surprised either. "The Russian secret service system is a very offensive and aggressive system," the CDU politician told SPIEGEL. Russian services are capable of large and complex secret service operations. »Agents are also placed at critical points in order to intercept or sabotage information there. This has been happening for many years, also and especially in Europe. It is therefore not surprising that this also affected the NATO headquarters in Brussels," said Kiesewetter. There, Russia has a “particular interest in accessing security-relevant information,” said the Bundestag member and praised NATO for its reaction.

Kiesewetter added that there could be no talk of isolated cases. “In 2022, around 400 agents from all over Europe were expelled,” said the CDU politician. However, many of them "continue to travel in European cities disguised as diplomats or with tourist visas in order to obtain information through espionage and to use disinformation and sabotage to destroy the cohesion of the EU and NATO and to sabotage support for Ukraine." Kiesewetter also called on the federal government and European institutions to take stronger action against espionage and Russian agents.

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