DUBLIN — Russian intelligence has recruited an Irish lawmaker to act as a propaganda mole and emissary — and Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris says it doesn’t surprise him one bit.
The news, which was broken by The Sunday Times’ security correspondent in Dublin, John Mooney, was confirmed to POLITICO by two senior Irish officials in the government and the justice system.
The lawmaker hasn’t been arrested or charged, the officials said, because he committed no crime in building relations with Kremlin agents operating out of Russia’s oversized embassy in Dublin. As such, in light of Ireland’s unusually plaintiff-friendly libel laws, the officials said the lawmaker shouldn’t be publicly identified.
When reporters asked Harris whether a Russian intelligence mole was operating within the parliament, the Irish prime minister said he couldn’t confirm the information, but added: “It shouldn’t come as any surprise to any of us.”
Harris said such efforts by Russian intelligence agents had increased in Ireland, as elsewhere, since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Back then, Ireland expelled four Russian diplomats accused of recruiting intelligence moles within Ireland’s political and business communities. Moscow retaliated by banning scores of Irish politicians from traveling to Russia, a move that drew mirth in Dublin.
“Russia seeks to distort public opinion, and is active in relation to that across the world. Ireland is not immune from that,” Harris said.
The officials told POLITICO the lawmaker had been recruited in 2019 as Russia sought to inflame Brexit-related tensions between Ireland and the U.K., particularly in the U.K. region of Northern Ireland. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither was authorized to discuss Ireland’s intelligence activity on the record.
Likewise, Harris said he couldn’t discuss the specifics of Irish intelligence on the lawmaker, who has been identified only as a current member of Ireland’s two-chamber parliament, the Oireachtas.
“Obviously we never comment on security issues for very good reasons,” he told reporters at a doorstep interview at the entrance to Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery.
Sergey Prokopiev, the Russian spy who allegedly recruited the lawmaker, was among the four Russian embassy staff expelled from Ireland in March 2022. All were identified as members of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, and engaged in espionage.
The Sunday Times reported that following his expulsion, Prokopiev continued to coordinate activities with the Irish lawmaker via a female Russian agent sent periodically to Dublin to pursue a romantic liaison with the politician — a “honeytrap” designed to compromise the amorous target.
POLITICO understands that the politician is a member of the largely left-wing opposition benches, not of the three-party government led by Harris, which backs Ukraine.
The officials said the lawmaker was told by police to end the contacts but did not comply. They said investigations into his conduct failed to identify any evidence he had been paid by the Russians or passed them security-sensitive documents.
The Sunday Times said the Russians recruited the lawmaker, in part, to develop contacts with illegal paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, particularly with “loyalist” extremists on the British Protestant side of the community.
One official told POLITICO that this approach, if confirmed, would suggest the Russians were “clueless” about Ireland’s political landscape. The official noted the lawmaker in question “has as many contacts in loyalist paramilitary circles as Walter Mitty,” a reference to a fictional character with a vivid fantasy life.
As for Irish lawmakers in Brussels and Dublin, Russia’s intelligence agents long have had a wealth of “useful fools” from which to cultivate sources. WHO’S THIS QUOTE FROM? I DON’T WANT IT TO BE US CALLING ALL THE BELOW PEOPLE FOOLS (whether it’s true or not!)
Before Russia’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine, many opposition lawmakers on the left of Irish politics maintained broadly pro-Moscow and anti-Kyiv positions, including the main opposition Sinn Féin. The Irish republican party responded to the 2022 attack on Ukraine by deleting more than a decade of its previous pro-Russian and anti-NATO messages from its online platforms.
Even Irish President Michael Higgins and his wife have been criticized for pro-Kremlin messaging. Higgins is a member of the opposition Labour Party.
The main pro-Kremlin voices in Ireland’s parliament operate far on the left of the political spectrum, and include five socialists and Trotskyites who operate under the umbrella People Before Profit-Solidarity. The grouping continues to accuse NATO and the EU of pursuing aggression and militarism against Russia.
Ireland’s two best-known Kremlin mouthpieces, independent socialists Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, were lawmakers in Dublin until 2019, when both were elected as MEPs. They lost their seats in this year’s European Parliament election.
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