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Rome – The Italian Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that it had summoned the Russian ambassador to Rome, after the Italian national gendarmerie (Carabinieri) announced the arrest of an Italian naval officer who was caught red-handed, spying for Moscow, accompanied by a Russian officer. who received “secret” documents, in an incident that sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
And the Italian National Gendarmerie announced that a Russian army officer and an Italian navy captain had been arrested on suspicion of espionage. “Carabinieri intervened during a secret meeting between the two, as soon as the Italian officer transferred a document in exchange for a sum of money,” he said in a statement.
“Both are accused of serious crimes related to espionage and state security,” he added.
The operation, which was carried out under the supervision of the Italian counterintelligence service and the Army General Staff, “targeted the captain of a frigate of the military navy and an authorized officer of the Embassy of the Russian Federation.”
“We transmit the strong protest of the Italian government and we are informed of the immediate expulsion of the employees of the Russian embassy involved in this serious case,” wrote Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on his Facebook account.
In recent months, several diplomats accused of espionage have been expelled from various European countries, including Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Austria, France and the Czech Republic.
The Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday that it hoped to maintain good relations with Italy. “We hope that the positive and constructive character of Russian-Italian relations will continue and be maintained,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Peskov noted that the Russian presidency “does not have any information on the circumstances and causes of the case.”
On each occasion, Russia responds by expelling European diplomats, most often denouncing unfounded “and anti-Russian” accusations.
European experts say Moscow has an army of agents in Europe, basing their findings on the frequent disclosure of spy networks. In 2019, a network of seven Russian spies who were working in the United States between 2014 and 2018 were exposed, pointing to United States anti-doping agency.
In 2018, the Netherlands expelled four Russian intelligence officers who had attacked the Chemical Weapons Prohibition Agency in The Hague. The suspects in the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal, with their passports, photographs and places of residence in Moscow, were also revealed.
Skripal was a former Russian intelligence spy who was arrested in 2006 in Moscow and convicted of “high treason” for spying for London.
In 2010, Moscow and some Western countries concluded a spy-swap deal that included Skripal, before attempting to poison him and his daughter on March 4, 2018 in Salisbury, UK.
Last February, the foreign ministries of Poland, Germany and Sweden issued decisions to expel Russian diplomats from their countries in response to the decision of the Russian Foreign Ministry to expel diplomats from the aforementioned countries from Russia.
And in mid-March, Bulgaria arrested 6 people on suspicion of having committed crimes of espionage for Russia.
The disclosure of this case comes at a time when relations between Russia and Europe are experiencing tensions over the background of the case of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and several other cases of espionage.
Moscow accuses the European Union of taking a “confrontational” stance towards it, while the European Union blames Russia for the deterioration of relations and urges it to “make progress” in the field of human rights, as well as “put an end to cyberattacks”. against its member states.
