The Austrian capital has become “the new center of Russian espionage in Europe,” says The Wall Street Journal.
Russian spy diplomats located in Vienna were involved in organizing the assassination in Spain of former Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who flew a Mi-8 helicopter from the Russian Federation to Ukraine last year. This is reported in the article Den of Spies: Vienna became the center of Russian espionage American newspaper The Wall Street Journal referring to Western intelligence agencies.
The killers who shot Maxim Kuzminov five times and then ran him over with an SUV outside his home in Spain “were criminals paid in cash by Russian civil servants from Vienna.”
“We are now becoming a burden on our neighbors because Russia is using us as a base of operations,” a senior Austrian intelligence official told the media.
Russia sends large volumes of cash to neighboring countries such as Lithuania by road, he said. From there, Russian diplomats smuggled them across Europe, often through diplomatic pouches that the police couldn’t check.
The publication notes that the Austrian capital has become “the new center of Russian espionage in Europe” and that dozens of Russian spies expelled from other European countries have moved here – in the past two years, the number of Russian civil servants in Austria increased. rose from 300 to over 500, nearly half of them spies.
The Austrian news agency APA reports that there is no official confirmation from Austria about the involvement of Russian diplomats in the killing of Kuzminov in Spain.
The Vienna prosecutor’s office told the agency that so far there has been no request for legal assistance from Spain in this regard.
As you know, the body of a Russian pilot who flew a helicopter over Ukraine was found in Spain.
Let’s recall that in August 2023, Maxim Kuzminov flew into the territory of Ukraine in a Mi-8AMTSh helicopter and surrendered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Source: korrespondent
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