With the war in Ukraine and the requests for membership of the European Union by Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, the secrets that Walter Biot , the naval officer arrested at the end of March last year (i.e. in the phase in which Moscow was handling thousands of combat-ready soldiers in Ukraine) had passed on to a Russian diplomatic agent in exchange for 5,000 euros. The trial against him will begin next March 30 in the court of Assizes, in Rome.
It seems, even looking at what emerged about the officer’s private life and economic difficulties, that the relationship between the frigate captain and Russian intelligence was in a phase that we can define as a test, in which the parties “sniff” to understand how far collaboration can be pushed. It could be for this reason, given the potential of the recruited resource, that the Italian authorities have decided to make the case public (it was the first weeks of Mario Draghi ‘s government ) without trying other ways after identifying the agent. THE 19 DOCUMENTS OF BIOT
Inside the Micro-SD card seized after Biot’s arrest there were 19 documents, Repubblica said. Among these, nine “contain information attributable to force, preparation and defense of the state” and “represent documents of strict military importance”. Then there are ten acts of a political nature: four “carry a NATO classification and are therefore removed from the knowledge of the parties in the proceedings”; the other six, in addition to information on the NATO Foreign Ministerial relating to Russia, also concern messages on the NATO-Georgia Commission. THE “S” FIND OUT ABOUT THE EAST
Among the documents that the military tried to sell to the Russians there is also the exhibit “S”. It contains, say the carabinieri del Ros cited by Repubblica, “messages (…) concerning the NATO foreign ministerial (Brussels, 23-24 March 2021)”. These are acts in which “the firm condemnation of internal repression in Russia is reaffirmed and the intensification of Moscow’s destabilizing actions (including cyber and hybrid attacks) directed against allies and partners (Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia) is highlighted, confirming a strengthening of the posture to the east of NATO as well as the commitment not to set aside a strengthening of the posture to the east of NATO, as a useful tool to manage the ‘difficult relationship’ with Moscow ”. The document, underlines Repubblica, is dated March 26, 2021, just four days before Biot’s arrest.THIS IS WHAT COPASIR IS WRITING
Copasir, we read in the report on the activities carried out from 1 January 2021 to 9 February 2022, “deepened the story concerning the frigate captain Walter Biot, serving at the Defense Staff, who stolen classified documentation by handing it to the GRU (Military Intelligence Service) officer, Dmitry Ostroukhov, in exchange for sums of money. The story is a clear example of the method of approaching attractive subjects operated by the Russian services which is characterized above all by the status of the officers present in the various Western countries, who are all or almost all covered by diplomatic status and generally tend to infiltrate the institutions . They are also looking for economic aspects, although in terms perhaps a little more residual than the Chinese, but they are mainly oriented towards information research in the institutional sphere, thanks also to their status, which leads them to have public relations ”. THIS IS WHAT ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE WRITES
In the Annual Intelligence Report for the year 2021, the Security Information Department deals with the situation in Ukraine and the Russian imperialist aims: “It is in the post-Soviet space that the Russian will to reassert its primacy has intensified , considering the former Soviet republics as the minimum security perimeter that guarantees strategic depth to Moscow’s external action and its desire to be recognized among the great world powers. And in the sign of this posture that 2021 ended, on the eve of the worsening of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis ”.
