Czechia and allies break up Belarus spy network across Europe

The Old Town skyline from the the Powder Tower, one of the original city gates, in Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. Photographer: Milan Jaros/Bloomberg

PRAGUE — The Czechia’s counterintelligence agency said Monday that it has broken up a spy network being built in Europe by Belarus in a joint cooperation with intelligence services from Hungary and Romania.

The Czech agency, also known as BIS, said in a statement that a team of European agents discovered spies in several European countries from Belarus’ KGB security agency. BIS said that a former deputy head of Moldovan intelligence service SIS who handed over classified information to the KGB was among them.

The Czechs also expelled a Belarusian agent who was operating under the cover of a diplomat. That person was given 72 hours to leave the Czech Republic, the Czech Foreign Ministry said Monday.

The Czech agency said that Belarus managed to create the network because its diplomats are able to freely travel across European countries.

“To successfully counter these hostile activities in Europe, we need to restrict the movement of accredited diplomats from Russia and Belarus within the Schengen (borderless) area,” BIS head Michal Koudelka said in a statement.

The agency didn’t immediately offer more details.

Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said on Monday that it implemented an arrest warrant for a 47-year-old suspect on treason charges. The suspect had previously held management positions within Moldova’s SIS. The suspect allegedly disclosed state secrets to Belarusian intelligence officers that would likely “endanger national security,” DIICOT stated.

The Romanian agency added that, between 2024 and 2025, the Moldovan suspect — who wasn’t named — met twice with Belarusian spies in Budapest, Hungary, and that there is “reasonable suspicion” that the meetings involved “transmitting instructions” and exchanging payments for services provided.

The ongoing international investigation has been supervised by the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust.

Belarus is led by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko let Russia use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and later allowed the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles.

The Associated Press