Embassy in Spain Embassy ● Stale ● host list

AEOW/INPACT announced on February 21st that “Ilya Savelyev is an active SVR officer currently posted as executive director of the Centre for the Study of Socio-political Problems of African and BRICS countriesand assistant to the Rector of St Petersburg State University. He used to work as first secretary at the Russian representation to NATO as well as in embassies in Spain and India. He is the one making the link between Africa Politology’s management and the SVR and still maintaining comms with them”

The Swedish Expressen published this story on April 18th stating that “Russia has extensive signals intelligence equipment on the roofs of its embassies in Europe, Expressen can reveal in cooperation with a group of European journalists. Satellite images and close-ups with telephoto lenses reveal the equipment. Intelligence sources tell how mobile phones can be tapped and how the security police’s encrypted radio communications can be tracked.” It continues that “an analysis of satellite images shows that in eleven EU countries there are such sheds on the roofs of Russian embassies or buildings connected to the embassies. The largest is the facility on the roof of the Russian embassy in Madrid, where the shed covers the entire roof and in practice constitutes an extra floor. Other countries where such sheds have been erected are, apart from Sweden and Poland, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania.” The Belgian Tijd also published this story about the same topic, the Polish Front Story also published this article about the same story, and the FSB Dossier Centre.

On April 5th, the Foreign Minister of Spain, José Manuel Albares stated that 25 Russian diplomats and staff from the Russian Embassy in Madrid are expelled in protest of Russian actions and because those 25 people “represent a threat to the interests and security of our country.”