“Slovak prosecutors have charged four people with accepting thousands of euros from Russian spies posing as diplomats in exchange for spying on NATO activity with a specific emphasis on the war in Ukraine. The charges were issued on Tuesday to crack down on alleged spy activity in Bratislava. They came a day after the Slovak foreign ministry expelled 3 Russian diplomats accused of using their diplomatic credentials as cover for recruiting the Slovaks, including a Slovak army officer and a blogger for a recently closed pro-Russian website, who was filmed by Slovak intelligence meeting with a Russian spy.”
“According to two Slovak officials, military intelligence unwrapped the spy ring after observing Bohuš Garbár, who wrote for the popular conspiracy site Hlavne správy [which translates as ‘Headlines’], apparently being recruited by a Russian military attache as an asset and talent spotter, who could identify people sympathetic to Russia with access to classified information about NATO and Ukraine.”
“The diplomat, later identified as Col. Sergej Solomasov of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU, explained that he was planning to later recruit such people identified by Garbar. “There are lots of people sympathetic to Russia,” Garbár told the GRU officer, according to a video leaked to the Slovak media and confirmed to VICE World News by two officials.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbqwz/slovakia-russia-ukraine-war-spy
Comment: Okay. I get it. They’re desperate. The GRU probably instructed their intelligence officers to cold pitch everyone in hopes of getting lucky. But this guy? He’s a local conspiracy theorist whose web site was just shut down by the Slovak government only a few days ago. What could Solomasov hope to get from him? And that recruitment pitch. It was something straight out of a Monty Python skit. Actually it wasn’t sophisticated enough for Monty Python. It was more like a Benny hill skit. The rot is clearly not just in the Russian ground forces.
TTG
Actually, the GRU often “cold pitches” possible agents. I remember one of my officers who was an assistant army attaché in Bangkok. A GRU man from their embassy ran into him at a diplomatic party and asked him on the spot if he wanted to work for the USSR. He had never met our man before.
Ha! If you ask someone for a dance and they say no, move on and on til you get a yes I reckon! Success is just around the corner (or sitting at the next table). Grin!
Some dances are hard to turn down 👀
https://www.the-sun.com/news/3426007/putins-spy-fell-love-man-seduce-fear-russia/
https://nypost.com/2022/03/11/ex-russian-spy-who-fell-in-love-with-target-blasts-putin/
Slovak security had either Gabar or Solomasov under surveillance for a long time in order to have video and audio already in place at their meeting site. From the opening conversation it seemed the two have known each other for awhile. Maybe Gabar was previously getting tidbits of dezinformatsiya from Solomasov or from someone else at the Russian Embassy?
I suspect Gabar was a bit of a con man by suggesting he could get info from Nad the Defense Minister.
What happens to Solomasov back in Moscow?
Leith,
As the assistant defense attache, I’m sure Solomasov was under surveillance or, at least, should have been. At a minimum, these two probably knew of each other if they didn’t already have an established relationship. If this was the result of a GRU general order to its case officers to get scalps in NATO ASAP, I doubt he’d face serious discipline except maybe for shit assignments from here on out.