Head of Swiss intelligence: Russia has increased spy activities in the country
Head of the Swiss intelligence Jean-Philippe Gaudin stated that there a lot of Russian spies in the country who have recently become more active, Deutsche Welle reported.
Gaudin did not mention the exact number of spies but he explained that Russian agents in Switzerland are now become more active than before.
He said that the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office is investigating a criminal case against two Russians, allegedly employees of the GRU (Main Russian Intelligence Directorate), Yevgeny Serebryakov and Alexei Morenets, suspected of involvement in a cyber-attack on the World Anti-Doping Agency in Lausanne.
The two Russians are also suspected of attempting to obtain data from the laboratory of radiological and chemical-bacteriological analysis in the Swiss city of Spitz. The laboratory helps to investigate the chemical attacks in Syria and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK.
Serebryakov and Morenets were detained in the spring of 2018 in The Hague and were extradited to Russia. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the incident a ‘misunderstanding’.
In September, Switzerland demanded that Russia stop spy activities in the country. It was noted that since the beginning of the year the Swiss Ministry has summoned three times the Russian ambassador.
Earlier, the Swiss magazine Sonntags-Zeitung wrote that, according to Swish security agencies, about one out of four Russian diplomats in Switzerland are or used to be employees of the Russian special services.