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Romanian diplomat busted spying in Moscow
Published: 16 August, 2010, 20:01
Edited: 23 August, 2010, 21:54
TAGS: Crime, Scandal, EU, Russia, Politics
A Romanian diplomat has been reportedly caught red-handed in Moscow during an attempt to obtain secret defense information.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has identified the Romanian intelligence agent.
“Romanian External Information Service officer Gabriel Grecu, working at the national embassy undercover as first secretary at the political department, was detained by the FSB as he attempted to obtain secret defense information from a Russian citizen on August 16,” the FSB said, as cited by Interfax news agency.
The alleged spy has been declared persona non grata and was given 48 hours to leave the Russian Federation.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed protest to the Romanian side through diplomatic channels in connection with Gabriel Grecu's activities being incompatible with his diplomatic status,” the FSB said.
So far, no official comment from the Romanian side has followed.
The report comes just weeks after the biggest spy swap deal between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War. This new spay scandal has drawn worldwide attention with media and analysts suggesting their own explanations for the move.
Romania’s former prime minister, Adrian Nastase says that the case might be some kind of a signal from Moscow to Moldova prior to a referendum aimed at overcoming a political crisis in the former Soviet republic, Russian GZT.ru news outlet writes citing Romanian television.
Even though relations between Romania and neighboring Moldova have been rather complicated in recent years, the two states that speak almost identical languages – which many linguists refer to as simply Romanian – have strong historical ties. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bucharest was the first to recognize Moldova’s independence. Romania has been backing Chisinau’s ambitions to join the EU. However, many in Moldova have been accusing Bucharest of seeking integration with the republic.
Too much Russian media attention to the incident is one of the explanations for his theory, Nastate said. Nastate, who is also a former Foreign Minister, said that before, no one would have known about a diplomat’s expulsion on espionage allegations.
He reminded of the recent Russian-American spy scandal. “From my personal experience, I can tell that normally the public is not aware of cases when some people are declared personae non grata,” he said.
Russian analysts have given a much simpler explanation to the entire story: everyone is just doing their job.
“The FSB has to work. Romanians, if they are involved in intelligence, have to show they are acting. So, one side has to do something, the other side’s task is to catch them. As simple as that,” a former employee of Russia’s military intelligence service, Vitaly Shlykov told the news site.
He also said that Bucharest has no military interests in Russia, and has excluded that they could spying in Russia for a third party.
Romania, however, has been a NATO member state since 2004.
Meanwhile, not much is known so far about the main character of the spy scandal – Grecu. Russian newspaper Kommersant claims that, prior to his work in Moscow, Gabriel Grecu was Chargé d'Affaires ad interim in Romania’s embassy to Armenia.
Romanian journalists have obtained data on the alleged spy’s income, cites GZT.ru. Grecu’s salary was far from impressive: slightly more than $6,000 per year. According to his 2009 income statement, Grecu has no bank accounts, no real property or cars, nor any debts to his name.
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marko First and foremost I love Finland. I think today, it is perhaps the greatest country to live and work. Also Finland can serve as an example of how not repeat the mistakes of the WWII constellations in the Axes forces- but to say that Finland was not part of the Axes is not credible. Finland paid a high price of losing some of its territory to Russia after it capitulated at the end of WWII. So let us not go there. NATO today and in the past was never purely a defensive military union. NATO has been and still is an instrument of U.S imperialistic expansion. Perhaps this is the real reason Finland has never joined NATO. NATO has no reason to exist save as an instrument of U.S imperial corporate expansion. But as the U.S loses its global position to China, and the global south- Europe will be forced to deal with the world with dialogue rather than being subservient to U.S geopolitical imperatives.
PR101: Just to correct two errors in your post: 1. Finland was not part of the Axis powers (and definately not part of any aggressive militarism like SU was for instance) in WW2 time. Finland fought it's own war against already 2nd aggression of SU within few years. 2. Nato is basically a defense union to protect Europian countries against the possible aggression of SU.
PR101 Thanks for the compliments! :) Your view is not taking in account the realities of 1940s. Finland was attacked by SU 1939 and war ended in bitter peace. SU took about 10% Finnish land and 400000 Finns had to be evacueted from the areas. SU continued to harass us whole interium peace time and occupied Baltics and half of Poland, while Germany took most other nearby countries. Finland was surrounded by these two monsters and still ravished by SU with not enough fields to feed the people and no proper defense materials left. Viipuri the 2nd largest city was lost. Finland had basically 3 choises 1940/1: - Hope for the best, that SU and Germany wouldn't have a war. And if they did, didn't use Finnish area to fight it. This was fantasy. - Ally itself with SU against Germany. But how can you trust SU after Winter War? People would've never accepted that. Basically everyone was feeling that SU was probably worse option than Germans. Probability of SU staying on their side of border when Finns would be fighting Germans were also not high. And as Baltic countries showed, SU didn't leave after the war. - Make a deal with Germany to get weapons and food and possibility in the event of war get back lost land. Not that difficult choice and probably only possible for Finns. What happened was determined the day SU attacked in 1939. If they hadn't, things would've been different. Finns had their own military goals, they didn't work under German command. It's quite clear that they weren't "aggressive militarist" Axis power. Also Finland stayed democratical whole time with no nazi parties. Finns don't want to join in Nato because most of us were brainwashed between 1945-90 to believe (as Russians) that SU's weapons are peace weapons and Nato is imperialistic war machine. And this illogical idea is still burned in brains of many Russians and Finns. I hope the younger generations can get away from this and base their ideas of facts and not imaginary threats.