As of: March 14, 2024, 10:08 a.m
By: Fabian Hartmann
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Austria's Foreign Minister Schallenberg is continuing his tough course and expelling two more Russian diplomats.
You are suspected of espionage.
Vienna – Austria has declared two Russian diplomats “undesirable persons”.
The two had “taken actions that are incompatible with their diplomatic status,” the Austrian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday evening (March 13), as reported by
Austrian Broadcasting Corporation
(ORF).
Such a justification for the judgment is usually formulated when those affected are involved in secret service activities.
The two Russian diplomats expelled on the basis of Article 9 of the Vienna Convention must leave Austrian federal territory by March 19 at the latest.
They were accredited to the bilateral Russian embassy in Austria, not to the representation to the international organizations in Vienna.
Russian embassy warns of “a decisive response from Moscow”
Representatives of the Russian embassy in Vienna expressed their “indignation” at the expulsion by Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP).
“As with previous expulsion episodes, no evidence or even proof of a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations was presented,” they said, according to
ORF
.
They also emphasized that the expulsion of their diplomats from Austria was a “purely political decision by the Austrian authorities” - which they categorically reject.
There can be no doubt about a “decisive response from Moscow”.
“The responsibility for further degrading bilateral relations lies solely with Vienna,” the Russian embassy representatives added.
Report: Vienna is “the main location for the spread of Russian narratives and disinformation”
In addition to the headquarters of UN institutions and the OSCE security organization, there are also two other permanent Russian representations in the Austrian capital.
According to a report in the left-wing alternative weekly newspaper Falter
, the OSCE mission and its head as well as a head of delegation are considered the
“main location for the spread of Russian narratives and disinformation”.
However, the leading and highest-ranking officers of the Russian secret services were sitting in the bilateral embassy, to which the two now expelled diplomats also belonged.
One of their most important tasks is to observe Russians living in exile.
According to its own statements, the
butterfly
is based on an anonymously leaked dossier, which proved to be plausible when checked.
A total of 23 Russian embassy employees are named as Russian secret service agents.
Some have already been expelled, others have left voluntarily and are now working in other European embassies instead.
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Second expulsion after 2022 – Austria’s Foreign Minister Schallenberg changes course
In the past, Austria had been cautious about expelling Russian diplomats.
The Austrian Foreign Ministry justified this primarily with concerns about the impact on the Austrian representation in Moscow.
It is comparatively sparsely staffed.
Schallenberg is the first Austrian foreign minister to have Russian diplomats expelled.
In April 2022, after the massacre in Butscha near Kiev became known, he expelled four Russian diplomats to Moscow.
At that time, a number of other EU countries responded by expelling Russian diplomats as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
According to media reports at the time, the four were said to have worked, sometimes in high-ranking positions, for the Russian military intelligence service Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Uprawleniye (GRU) and other Russian intelligence services.
Two Russian diplomats were expelled from Austria.
Here: The Russian Embassy in Vienna.
(Montage) © Gavriil Grigorov/dpa, Dmitry Valeyev/TASS/Imago
In August 2022,
according to
ORF
Another Russian diplomat was expelled on charges of economic espionage, which have not been officially confirmed.
Four more Russians followed in February 2023, two of whom were accredited to the bilateral embassy and two to the UN mission.
And even before the Russian aggression, a Russian diplomat had to leave the country in August 2020 on suspicion of economic espionage.
“It is an open secret that there are spies among the Russian embassy staff in Vienna,”
ORF
said
the expulsion of both Russian diplomats by Foreign Minister Schallenberg.
After the espionage scandal at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), it is likely to be a similarly open secret that Putin's envoys could also be in Germany for espionage purposes.
After the espionage scandal: BND President Kahl admits “serious damage to his reputation”.
As a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine, two former BND employees were accused in 2022 of having transmitted information that they had obtained in the course of their work at the BND to the Russian secret service FSB.
Only on Wednesday (March 13th) did BND President Bruno Kahl admit that the institution had suffered “serious damage to its reputation” as a result of the espionage of the two BND employees.
From the BND's point of view, it was a "catastrophe," said the head of the German foreign secret service in front of the Berlin Court of Appeal.
“An insider is one of the worst things that can happen to an intelligence service,” said Kahl.
(fh)