About two hundred antennas have been positioned on the roofs of the Russian embassies in half of Europe, which would be used for intelligence interceptions and for the espionage of electromagnetic signals (Sigint, acronym of signals intelligence).
The investigation was conducted by Dossier Center together with the European media Delfi, De Tijd, Expressen, Frontstory, Icjk, Lrt and VSquare.
The largest number of these antennas can be found on the roofs of the Russian embassy in Brussels, where there are 17 of them. It is no coincidence: in the Belgian capital there are the headquarters of the European institutions and the NATO headquarters.
The devices installed in Brussels, the Thuraya antennas, are able to pick up conversations in half of the European countries.
According to satellite images, the equipment would not be present on Russian diplomatic buildings in Italy.
In Europe, however, there are at least 182 antennas on 39 buildings: in Madrid, Prague, Belgrade, Lisbon, Sofia and Nicosia there are at least 10 devices.
However, there could be more since the consortium has documented only the visible ones.
But it's not just the numbers that are worrying.
It is not new, explains the report, that antennas are positioned on diplomatic palaces, but the set of those found on Russian embassies - satellite dishes or pole antennas, but also Uda directional array antennas or whip antennas - allow you to listen the signals of the territory in which they are located, also intercepting cell phones.
However, they would not be able to pass on information to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
This electronic system would help Moscow deal with the expulsions of Russian diplomats from embassies, often reported as spies, according to the Dossier Center.
Since the beginning of 2022, around 400 Russian diplomats have been expelled from European countries - an all-time record.
In the summer of 2022, the Dossier Center reported that at least five expelled employees of the Russian embassy in Belgium had engineering training in the field of information technology or radio communications and served in the relevant units of Russian intelligence.
Similar cases have occurred in Sweden, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.