Does Russia’s highest-ranking representative to the EU also work for an intelligence service? The Belgian secret service obviously assumes this.
Russia’s currently highest-ranking representative to the EU is suspected of espionage. According to findings from the Belgian secret service VSSE, the diplomat Kirill Logvinov is said to work not only for the Russian Foreign Ministry, but also for the Russian foreign intelligence service SWR, as several sources confirmed to the German Press Agency in Brussels on Tuesday. According to his CV, he previously worked at the Russian Embassy in Berlin between 2010 and 2014.
“Spiegel” and several other European media reported on the case on Tuesday. The first reports of the suspicion had already been made in the summer of last year.
There was no answer on Tuesday to the question of what kind of work Logvinow might have carried out or is still carrying out for the SWR. “We are not commenting on this,” said a spokesman for the VSSE secret service to the dpa in response to an inquiry about the case.
Nowadays, espionage is not just the covert acquisition of information. Activities in the area of unwanted political or social influence are also included. This can happen, for example, through the targeted spread of false information in the host country.
Relationships already at their lowest point
The 48-year-old Logvinov has been Russia’s highest representative to the EU as Chargé d’affaires since September 2022. The post of official ambassador has been vacant since Vladimir Chizhov was recalled to his homeland last year after around 17 years as Russia’s EU ambassador. Relations between Brussels and Moscow had previously sunk to a low point because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When asked why Logvinov was not asked to leave the country in view of the suspicion of espionage, the responsible EU foreign service did not give a clear answer on Tuesday. A spokesman simply pointed out that measures were in place “to continually assess the extent of the threat.”
He also recalled that 19 Russian diplomats had already been declared personae non-gratae by the EU in April last year. At the time, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell justified this by saying that the people were taking part in activities that contradicted their diplomatic status.
Source: Stern
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