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See who it is based on NOVA information
The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry declared a diplomat from the Russian embassy in Sofia persona non grata and gave him 72 hours to leave the country for actions incompatible with his diplomatic status. According to NOVA, this is Colonel Vasily Sazanovich, a military attaché at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Sofia.
The foreign citizen has collected information that is a state secret to provide it to Russia. On this occasion, at the signal of the State Agency for National Security, pre-trial proceedings have been initiated in the Special Prosecutor’s Office for a crime against the Republic of Bulgaria, according to the state prosecutor’s office.
In the course of the investigation of the preliminary proceedings it was established that in the period from 2017 to the present, another citizen of the Russian Federation has carried out intelligence activities in which military information was collected, including the number of troops stationed in Bulgaria during US military exercises. The goal was to transmit information, an official and state secret, to Russian military intelligence in Moscow. In order to carry out his illegal activity, the Russian citizen had contacts with a Bulgarian citizen who had access to the relevant classified information. He was promised and given financial benefits.
It has been established that the Russian citizen enjoys diplomatic status. According to an article of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, despite the grounds to charge him with a crime, the criminal process against the foreigner was suspended because “the author is a person with immunity,” said the Prosecutor’s Office.
Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev officially briefed Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva on the results of the investigation and the measures taken.
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