Three men were arrested in Frankfurt on suspicion of espionage, the German authorities said Friday.
The three suspects — a Russian, Arman S.; an Armenian, Vardges I.; and a Ukrainian, Robert A. — travelled to Germany to gather information for a foreign intelligence service, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
The trio, who were arrested on Wednesday, are accused of surveilling a person from Ukraine and staking out a café in Frankfurt where their target was meant to be. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office did not reveal which country’s intelligence service the men were allegedly working for.
European governments and spy-catchers have grown increasingly concerned about an uptick of espionage in the bloc since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. From France to Bulgaria, Russian snoops, often working under diplomatic cover, have been expelled en masse.
Last week, the foreign ministers of eight EU countries wrote to the bloc’s top diplomat asking that Russian diplomats and their families be restricted from moving freely in a bid to “significantly narrow operational space for Russian agents.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also pledged to crack down on Russian spies, including imposing “tighter restrictions on Russian intelligence personnel across the alliance.”
The arrests in Frankfurt come days after Estonia sentenced a Russian university professor to six years imprisonment for spying for the Kremlin.
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