Der Spiegel: Russia's permanent representative to the EU was suspected of espionage

The Belgian State Security Service suspects the acting permanent representative of Russia to the European Union, Kirill Logvinov, as well as other employees of the Russian mission to the EU, of “secret activities against European interests,” Der Spiegel reports in a joint investigation with other media.

As journalists write, Logvinov is suspected of working for the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. Belgian counterintelligence called on the authorities to add the permanent representative to the list of persons subject to deportation, but diplomats at the European External Action Service (EEAS) did not support this idea.

From 2010 to 2014, Logvinov worked at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. They began to suspect him of working for the intelligence services only in 2022, when he served as deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the EU.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in response to the publication of Der Spiegel, invited journalists to “publish a list of German intelligence agents around the world.”

“If Russian diplomats are bullied in the Western media, Western diplomats will feel what it feels like,” she said.

The material about Logvinov is part of a joint investigation by Der Spiegel, De Tjid, Expressen, Delfi, Vsquare, Frontstory, ICJK, the investigative journalist community Paper Trail Media and the Dossier Center about Russian spies in the EU.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EU countries have expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats. Thus, in 2022, Brussels declared 19 employees of the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU and 21 employees of the Russian Embassy in Brussels persona non grant. Germany, in turn, expelled 40 employees of Russian diplomatic missions.