The Bulgarian military prosecutor’s office today prosecuted six people, including military intelligence officers, on charges of spying for Russia.
The defendants engaged in “espionage activities” as they “collected and disseminated to a foreign country information constituting state secrets,” the Sofia prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Three of the suspects provided “confidential military information”.
The group was led by a former high-ranking military intelligence officer who recruited officials who had unrestricted access to classified information, not only in Bulgaria but also in European Union and NATO member states. Among them were two Bulgarian military intelligence officers, the head of a defense ministry service, and an official handling information classified by parliament.
The members of the group were paid to pass the information to the network leader and his wife, who had dual Bulgarian and Russian citizenship. The couple gave the information to an official of the Russian embassy in Sofia, as the representative of the prosecutor’s office had stated when the six were arrested, in mid-March.
Five of the accused have been remanded in custody while the sixth is on parole.
In recent years, Russia’s relations with Bulgaria have been marked by many espionage cases. From October 2019 until the end of 2020, five Russian diplomats and a technician of the Russian embassy were deported. Among them was the Russian military envoy, who allegedly coordinated the network.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
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Source From: Capital
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