Bulgaria Expels Russian Diplomats After Busting Spy Ring
Following the arrest in Bulgaria of six people on suspicion of espionage, Sofia has declared two senior Russian diplomats personae non grata and given them 72 hours to leave, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
“The two diplomats had carried out activities in the country that are incompatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the Foreign Ministry stated.
Bulgarian National Television named the two diplomats as Maxim Ribkin, first secretary in the Russian embassy and Alexander Zinkin, the second secretary.
Although the announcement does not state a link between the events, the expulsions directly follow a major intelligfence operation on March 19, when a ring of local spies, some of them members of the Ministry of Defence, was uncovered after months of investigations.
Five of the six remain detained after one made a full confessions of espionage activity. They are charged with releasing classified information about NATO and European Union activities in Bulgaria to Russia as well as details about the capabilities of the army.
The informants were paid, receiving up to 3,000 US dollars each for their contributions, according to the authorities.
The key figure in the ring, initially named by the Prosecution only as “The Resident”, has been named as Ivan Iliev, a former chief of Military Intelligence in Bulgaria. His wife, who has a double Bulgarian-Russian citizenship, is also part of the group.
“Unfortunately … this unjust démarche of the Bulgarian authorities will not contribute to creating a constructive Russian-Bulgarian dialogue,” the Russian embassy in Sofia stated on Monday. One of the detainees tried to escape but was arrested in the embassy.
The prosecution’s original lead to the spy ring remains unclear. Videos released on YouTube show the group was under surveillance since its formation, before some of them were given any orders.
The case has also drawn mixed reactions, as while the prosecution prides itself on this mission, it has never fully investigated many local affairs, including one when PM Boyko Borissov was photographed naked in bed next to a pistol and stacks of money in 2020.
The latest events are just the freshest chapter in a saga featuring several expulsions over the years about alleged Russian spying and meddling.
On September 24, 2020, two Russian diplomats suspected of espionage on the local military were named personae non grata. Before that, in January 2020, two Russian diplomats were expelled.
In September 2019, Nikolay Malinov, leader of a pro-Russian NGO, the Russophile National Movement, was charged with spying. At the same time, a former senior Russian intelligence officer, Leonid Reshetnikov, was banned from entering Bulgaria.
Another earlier Russia-linked case was the poisoning of firearms dealer Emilian Gebrev, allegedly with a Novichok agent in April 2015, although this was never confirmed. The case, following the disappearance of lab probes, remains unsolved.
The prosecution announced the uncovering of the spy ring on Friday, just two days after another publicized case which Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev promoted as unprecedented – the discovery of a plant for counterfeit money.
However this drama fell flat when it turned out to be a copy centre making fake money for party decorations. The two suspects connected to that case have been released.
