By Oisin Sweeney • Published: 18 Dec 2020 • 22:09
BULGARIA has expelled a Russian diplomat they accuse of attempting to gather data on US troops training in the country.
The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry claims that the Russian military attache was spying on US soldiers while they were in the country to carry out training drills. He has been declared a persona-non-grata and was ordered to leave Bulgaria within 72 hours.
In a statement, prosecutors said, “It was determined that a Russian citizen was collecting information from 2017 until recently about, among other things, the number of US troops that were in Bulgaria for drills”. It is alleged that the diplomat offered a large sum of money to a Bulgarian national in return for classified data that he had access to.
The Russian Embassy in Sofia has called the allegations “baseless”, and warned that Moscow would respond against Bulgaria’s move. Last year, two staff members at a Russian government trade mission were expelled from Bulgaria for espionage allegations.
Recently, two diplomats at Russia’s embassy in the Hague were expelled from the Netherlands following accusations they had been spying on the Dutch technology sector.
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Oisin is an Irish writer based in Seville, the sunny capital of Andalucia. After starting his working life as a bookseller, he moved into journalism and cut his teeth as a reporter at one of Ireland's biggest news websites. Since joining Euro Weekly News in November, he has enjoyed covering the latest stories from Seville, Spain and further afield - with special interests in crime, cybersecurity, and European politics. Anyone who can pronounce his name first try gets a free cerveza...
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