How An Alleged Russian Spy Ring Used Cold War Tactics

Bulgaria’s Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev; prosecutors described a recent series of arrests as the country’s biggest spy bust since the Cold...

Bulgaria’s Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev; prosecutors described a recent series of arrests as the country’s biggest spy bust since the Cold War. / Stoyan Nenov

In early December, a high-ranking Bulgarian Ministry of Defense official sat down at his desk, took out a black Samsung smartphone and spent the next hour and 20 minutes snapping photographs of classified military documents on his work computer. 

The photos, allegedly intended for the leader of a Russian spy ring, including sensitive information about F-16 jet fighters, according to video intercepts released by Bulgarian authorities. “You provided a lot of material last time. Four batches,” the purported ringleader told the official in another intercept. “I saw what you had on the flash drive. Good stuff.”

Last week, authorities in Bulgaria, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said they broke up a Russian spy ring that was gathering information for Moscow on the NATO military alliance, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Ukraine, and the conflict in the disputed South Caucasus territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Five men and one woman, including the alleged ringleader, were arrested and charged with espionage in what Bulgarian prosecutors call the country’s biggest spy bust since the Cold War.

Russia has used longstanding ties and sympathies with the smaller and more vulnerable members of NATO and the European Union to cultivate spy networks and get access to Western secrets. The intercepts released by prosecutors indicate that in an era of sophisticated cyberspying, Moscow still values human intelligence.

“Russia has skillfully leveraged existing and former security services networks that have been alive and well even three decades after the fall of the Communist regime,” said Martin Vladimirov, senior analyst at Sofia-based think tank Center for the Study of Democracy.

The forensic evidence released by Bulgarian prosecutors, including video, audio intercepts and documents, portrays Russian spycraft in rare detail. In one video, a suspected spy counts dollar payoffs at his work desk; another video shows a predawn rendezvous at a tennis court to deliver information. A third intercept features the alleged ringleader giving instructions on how to conceal spy equipment as a present.

“Such a case happens once in a lifetime,” Bulgaria’s Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev said in an interview. “I have rarely seen so much evidence and we’ve only released a small part of it.”

A Sofia military court on Monday ruled to keep in custody five of the accused ring members. The sixth was released on bail after confessing and cooperating with authorities. Bulgaria expelled two Russian diplomats, accusing them of espionage in relation to the case.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the case “another exacerbation of anti-Russian ‘spy mania’ in Bulgaria…against the background of a surge of Russophobia in the West, primarily in the U.S.” It said it reserved the right to retaliate in response to the expulsions. The Kremlin has routinely denied interfering in the internal affairs of other nations for its own purposes.

The names of those arrested haven’t been officially released. Petar Petkov, a lawyer for one of the alleged spies, told Bulgarian state television that the court’s decision wasn’t justified and said he would appeal. “The prosecutor’s office doesn’t indicate what information our client and the others have collected in order to provide to another state,” Mr. Petkov said. “Then we can conclude whether this information constitutes a state secret.”

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An alleged member of the group holds an envelope with a cash payoff in this image, according to Bulgarian prosecutors.

Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, said Wednesday that the alliance is closely following the investigation and takes the protection of classified information seriously. “What we see in Bulgaria is a pattern of Russian behavior where they try to undermine our democratic institutions, try to interfere in domestic politics and are stepping up within the intelligence domain,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.

“Such a case happens once in a lifetime.”— Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev

In recent years, Bulgaria has expelled several Russian diplomats for alleged spying, including collecting information on U.S. troop numbers in the country. Beyond Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest nation, Russia is running extensive intelligence networks in other former Soviet satellite states, security experts said. Last year, Slovakia and the Czech Republic expelled Russian diplomats over allegations of illegal activities.

Bulgarian authorities said that members of the suspected spy ring had access to NATO, EU and Bulgarian secrets through their work in the Bulgarian Defense Ministry, military intelligence and parliament.“Given their high-ranking positions and their access to classified information, including that of NATO, the national security risks were significant,” Mr. Geshev said.

A former communist country that was once one of the Soviet Union’s staunchest allies, Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007. But Moscow continues to wield influence over the domestic affairs and intelligence agencies of the Balkan state through close economic links and the ties to Moscow of business leaders, politicians and intelligence officials.

The Bulgarian case highlights how Moscow still depends on traditional human intelligence networks and gumshoe skills to spy on the West, said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s security services at British think tank Royal United Services Institute. “The Russians are very strong devotees of human intelligence and frankly that’s their strength,” he said.

According to prosecutors, the ring was led by a self-proclaimed “pro-Stalin” former senior Bulgarian military intelligence official who graduated from a spy school run by Russia’s military intelligence service, in Moscow. Dubbed “the Resident” by prosecutors, he is said to have recruited his agents by offering them up to $1,800 a month, or in his words, “a nice little sum.”

The rest of the group included current Bulgarian military intelligence and Defense Ministry personnel and an official working at the parliament’s classified information department, prosecutors said.

“If there’s something secret, you can take a photo,” the man prosecutors identify as the Resident is heard telling one of his agents in an audio recording. “Materials about Russia, the Middle East, Iraq, local conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh—this one is very important. Ukraine and Belarus too.”

An image provided by Bulgarian prosecutors shows what they say is the wife of the alleged spy ring leader exiting the Russian Embassy in Sofia.

The Resident then used his wife, who holds dual Russian and Bulgarian citizenship, as an intermediary between the network and Russian Embassy, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say she is the woman shown in videos entering the Russian Embassy in Sofia and then leaving around an hour later, in what they say was a mission to deliver information and return with cash. She has been arrested and charged as part of the group.

At meetings with group members, often over beers and dinner, the Resident gave advice on espionage tactics, the intercepts show. He supplied his agents with smartphones that encrypt information, including photos taken on them, prosecutors said. “Now the question is where to hold this device,” he tells one of his agents in a recording.

“If they ask me, I’ll say it’s for work,” the agent responds. “I think you should put it in some drawer and wrap it as a gift,” the Resident says. “And put a note on top, ‘Gift for Victoria,’ as if you’ll give her a present in the future.” Prosecutors haven’t said who “Victoria” is.

In a different intercept, the Resident instructs an agent on how to take photos of documents on his computer.“You’ll stand calmly in front of the screen [and take a shot],” he says. “Then see if it’s readable. Make sure it’s not blurry.”

Prosecutors say it isn’t clear how long the group was operating, but they say that money was the main motivation for participants. In one recording, the Resident advised an agent to receive his payoff in Bulgarian leva because exchanging foreign currency would be risky. “Yes, it’s dangerous,” the Resident says in another intercept. “But we have one life in the end, my boy. Nobody counts you for anything if you don’t have money.”