Alleged Russian agents offered to send 10,000 soldiers to Catalonia during its failed bid for independence from Spain in 2017, Spanish and European media reported Wednesday.
The claims are based on audio recordings from one of the 21 Catalan businessmen detained this week on suspicion of corruption and incitement of public disorder, according to Politico Europe. A Barcelona judge probing links between the failed separatist bid and Russia reportedly said he believes then-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont had declined the Russian offer of military aid.
“Had he accepted, the developments would have probably been tragic and would have unleashed an armed conflict with the state with an unknown number of deaths,” judge Joaquín Aguirre was quoted as saying.
The news outlets did not identify the Russian agents, noting only that they were members of a group “created during former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s era.”
According to the Associated Press, the wide-ranging probe targets alleged mismanagement of public funds and an alleged Russian-backed disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting Spain. It reported that the Russian offer of military aid was “apparently to help in a theoretical armed conflict with Spanish authorities.”
Spain, which declared Catalonia’s independence referendum illegal and imprisoned several separatist leaders, accused Russia of interference. Moscow rejected the claims.
Russia’s Embassy in Madrid responded to the latest report of military aid with a sardonic statement that the information is “incomplete.”
“You need to add two zeros to the number of soldiers,” it said.
“The most shocking part of this plot is that the troops had to be transported by the early Soviet-era planes ‘Mosca’ and ‘Chato’ assembled in Catalonia during the Civil War and hidden in a safe place in the Catalan range,” it added.
Russian Agents Raid Home of Investigative Journalist
Russian security agents on Friday raided the home of the editor of an online investigative journal that recently published articles on the security services, his editorial team said.
Operatives of the FSB security agency searched the apartment of Roman Anine, his Vajnye istorii investigative news website colleagues said.
They cited his lawyer saying that Anine was targeted in connection with inquiries into «violation of privacy by abusing his professional functions,» an offense punishable by up to four years in prison.
He was due to go with his lawyers to talk to the committee in charge of criminal inquiries, according to media reports.
Anine, 34, had previously worked for Novaya Gazeta, the most reputable opposition newspaper in Russia.
Novaya Gazeta editorial board said the case was linked to an investigation opened in 2016, following the publication by Anine suggesting that the wife of one of the most powerful men in the country, Igor Sechin, owned a yacht valued at $100 million.
The newspaper was found guilty of defamation after Sechin filed a complaint about the report.
«What is happening now to Roman Anine is a story of revenge,» the paper said in a statement.
Created last year, Vajnye istorii has most of its editorial staff based in Latvia with correspondents in Russia.
The website recently published articles on possible links between the FSB and organized crime, and others on torture in Russian prisons and surveillance of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
