On the roofs of Russian embassies around the world you can see many different antennas. Special means for communication with the homeland are used by embassies of other countries, but on Russian buildings there are suspiciously many of them.
The embassy in Brussels is decorated 17 antennas, at least a dozen similar devices at representative offices in Madrid, Prague, Belgrade, Lisbon, Sofia and Nicosia. In total, on 39 buildings of Russian embassies and consulates throughout Europe – at least 182 antennas. And these are only those that are visible from the outside.
Nominally, these antennas are used for special communications. In fact, many of them are easy to adapt for radio interception – for example, conversations on satellite phones. Devices have been spotted on the roofs of some embassies, including Warsaw, that could wiretap and mobile communications.
The only problem is that there is no one else to monitor these negotiations. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, EU countries have expelled more than 400 diplomats accused of working for intelligence. Many of them were just specialists in radio intelligence. For example, only in Belgium at least five expelled embassy employees had education in radio communications or computer technology and served in intelligence. We found similar examples in Estonia and Sweden.
How radio interception is arranged in Russian embassies is in the investigation of the Dossier Center, Delfi (Estonia), De Tijd (Belgium), Expressen (Sweden), Frontstory (Poland), ICJK (Slovakia), LRT (Lithuania) and VSquare (Central Europe). This material is first part of the ESPIOMATS project about espionage under diplomatic cover.
https://fsb.dossier.center/antenna/ (with VPN)
We explain how embassy radio intelligence works
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