Russia spy warning over claims Putin's agents are 'disguised as lost tourists'
A spy agency has said Vladimir Putin's spooks are appearing as lost tourists. A report by the Latvian State Security Service (MIDD) said Russian intelligence operatives disguised as civilians is an increasing concern for authorities.
The report also said Kremlin spies are the biggest threat to Latvia's national security, as it warned of spooks appearing in untidy clothing such as sportswear or mismatched military clothing. People should be wary of suspicious individuals appearing to be lost and asking locals strange questions, the MIDD said.
'If you do think you might have spotted a sabotage group on Latvian soil, MIDD does not recommend tackling them yourself," the report urged residents. "Instead report your suspicions to the State Police, special services, or the nearest armed forces unit.'
Not all operatives appear the same and citizens should consider the context when coming across someone they may suspect. They are most likely to loiter close to critical infrastructure or even near military sites.
The spies are 'highly adaptive', the report says, basing some of its assessment on 'experience from Ukraine '. Operatives could be there to try and destabilise society or even target individuals for assassination.
Similar concerns have been raised by Finland's Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO). It said there had been sabotage operations linked to operatives the GRU, one of Russia's intelligence agencies.
Earlier this week, six Bulgarians were jailed after being convicted of spying for Russia on an industrial scale. Ringleader Orlin Roussev, 47, who led the spy ring from a rundown guesthouse on the east coast of England, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months on Monday.
He had admitted his role along with his second-in-command, Biser Dzhambazov, 44, who was jailed for 10 years and two months and Ivan Stoyanov, 33, who was handed five years and three weeks in prison. Female 'honeytrap' agents Katrin Ivanova, 33, and Vanya Gaberova, 30, and competitive swimmer Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, were found guilty at the Old Bailey in March of activities which police have said put lives and national security at risk.
Mr Justice Hilliard jailed Ivanova, of Harrow, north-west London, for nine years and eight months, saying she had 'thrown in' her lot with her partner Dzhambazov and become an 'enthusiastic' participant. Gaberova, of Euston, north London, was jailed for six years, eight months and three weeks, having found spying for Russia to be 'exciting and glamorous', the judge said. Her ex-boyfriend Ivanchev, of Acton, west London, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Marco Rubio denies Zelensky is being ‘bullied' by Trump amid European leaders meeting
Marco Rubio dismissed the "stupid media narrative" that Donald Trump would bully Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into a disadvantageous deal with Russia. Rubio clarified that European leaders attending the meeting with Zelensky were invited by Trump and are not present as "backup" against bullying. Trump recently held a nearly three-hour meeting with Russian President Putin in Anchorage to discuss the war in Ukraine, but no ceasefire agreement was reached. The article references a past contentious meeting in Washington D.C. where Trump accused Zelensky of gambling with "World War Three" and Vice President JD Vance questioned Zelensky's gratitude. Rubio refused to disclose any potential concessions Trump might seek from Russia, stating that revealing such details could jeopardise the negotiations.
Reuters
29 minutes ago
- Reuters
Take Five: From Anchorage to Jackson Hole
Aug 18 (Reuters) - There seems to be very little standing in the way of stock-market bulls right now, but what follows a U.S./Russia summit in Alaska, a central bank shin-dig in Wyoming and the outcome of Bolivia's election may imbue them with some caution. Here's your week ahead from Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Suzanne McGee and Rodrigo Campos in New York and Dhara Ranasinghe and Naomi Rovnick in London. Following Friday's meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it's the turn of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders to meet the U.S. President later on Monday, opens new tab to map out a peace deal. The fear is Trump could try to pressure Kyiv into accepting a settlement favourable to Moscow. Zelenskiy has already all but rejected the outline of Putin's proposals, including for Ukraine to give up the rest of its eastern Donetsk region, of which it currently controls a quarter. No doubt, markets will be hesitant to price in an end to the war until a ceasefire, at least, is agreed. Europe, meanwhile, is unlikely to embrace Russia, even if peace returns to Ukraine. Defence stocks are likely to remain an investor favourite for now. It's officially summer in financial markets. Q2 earnings are out, the next crop of major economic data isn't until early September and many money managers and traders are heading out to the beaches for a break. There is just one thing to worry about: Jackson Hole. The Wyoming resort plays host to the annual central bankers' schmoozefest and will include Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell among its attendees. The conference takes place as stocks hover near record levels, and Trump continues to take pot-shots at Powell. Jackson Hole has the potential to be disruptive. Any hint from Powell that a September rate cut isn't happening and markets could sell off hard, while an overly upbeat tone from the Fed chair may feed more euphoria. 'And bull markets die in euphoria,' says Steve Sosnick, strategist at trading firm IBKR. As global stocks rally, everything from weak U.S. jobs data to trouble at the top of the Federal Reserve has been a reason to bet on U.S. rate cuts, meaning it's not been profitable to be bearish. About 60% of global investors surveyed by BofA think U.S. stagflation could be the dominant global market regime within three months. A basket of stocks that do well in stagflationary environments, where growth slows as inflation accelerates, has been outpaced by Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX), opens new tab this year, Societe Generale strategists reckon. Next week's business surveys, which can show economic trends months before they appear in official data, will offer more clues about whether U.S. tariffs are driving the world's largest towards stagflation. SocGen, however, expects Fed rate cuts to inflate a stock-market bubble that might not pop until at least next year. With nearly every central bank looking to cut rates to give their economies a soft landing, the Bank of Japan stands apart in its mission to raise borrowing costs - in theory. So, next Friday's inflation data will be in focus for any sign of when the BOJ's long-pledged tightening cycle will resume. The previous reading of the core consumer price index (CPI) showed an annual 3.3% increase in June, remaining above the BOJ's 2% target for over three years. No bank went harder or longer with quantitative easing than the BOJ. But the long road towards normalisation has been complicated by uncertainty over U.S. tariffs and concerns about whether Japan was seeing the right kind of price increases. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has justified slower rate hikes because underlying inflation, which focuses on domestic demand and wages, remains below the central bank's target. Centrist senator Rodrigo Paz was leading Bolivia's presidential election late on Sunday. The election kicks off a string of national and local votes across Latin America that extends into late next year, when behemoth Brazil votes to elect a new (or sitting) president. After 2022's "pink tide" brought left-leaning governments to power in Chile, Colombia and Brazil, investors want to see if voters will return to more market-friendly right-wingers. Ahead of the Bolivian election, the country's bonds rallied on hopes that political change could bring the economy back from the brink. Argentina's local elections in September and October are seen as a gauge of the popularity of President Javier Milei's radical economic transformation. Chile votes for a president in November, while next year Colombia elects its congress in March and president in May. Peru holds a presidential election in April and Brazil does so in October 2026.
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Starmer's coalition of the willing has been saved from itself
It is commonplace to accuse politicians of being out of touch. There is often some truth in the charge, and our elected representatives take it on the chin. One of the least likely politicians to face this charge has always been John Healey: the defence secretary has been one of the most sensible and pragmatic ministers in Sir Keir Starmer's cabinet – not a high bar, admittedly. And yet there are signs that he has succumbed to the Ministry of Defence's corrosive habit of dealing with the world as it wants it to be, not as it is. We all watched the news from Friday's summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage. However you try to frame the encounter, it was at best a huge disappointment for the US president. His Russian counterpart conceded nothing and his armed forces continue to pound Ukraine's cities. Meanwhile, his pre-conditions for any kind of negotiations remain the maximal aims with which he began the war: Ukraine must cede territory to Russia, rule out membership of Nato indefinitely and, in practice, allow the Kremlin a veto over its foreign policy. And yet, John Healey can't be accused of being a pessimist. 'In the circumstances of a ceasefire we're ready to put UK boots on the ground in Ukraine,' he told the BBC on Friday, shortly before the talks began. 'They are ready to go, they're ready to act from day one. The military plans are complete.' This is, of course, the 'coalition of the willing' which Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have worked so hard to assemble. But there is one problem: it may indeed be 'ready to go' – although this is doubtful – but there is no ceasefire nor any prospect of a ceasefire, and Russia has violated previous pauses in the fighting with impunity. Secretary of state Marco Rubio was downbeat in the wake of the summit. 'There remain some big areas of disagreement,' he admitted to ABC's This Week. 'We're not at the precipice of an agreement, we're not at the edge of one.' President Trump, for whom consistency is something that applies to other people, seems to have decided a ceasefire is no longer important, despite having previously stressed what a priority it was. He casually edited reality on his Truth Social platform in his characteristic and odd way: It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up. Where does this leave the coalition of the willing? Starmer and Macron are now all dressed up with nowhere to go. They have made an enormous play of their genuinely tireless efforts in constructing the coalition, but its only purpose is to monitor, police or help implement a ceasefire in Ukraine. It is now plain to any rational observer that there will be no ceasefire in the foreseeable future, because it is not an approach which suits Putin and he now knows that Trump has little intention of putting pressure on him to bring it about. That may prove good fortune in a heavy disguise for Starmer because there is another consideration. Our armed forces are in no position to deploy significant numbers of troops in a safe and sustainable way to Ukraine. The size of the coalition's anticipated deployment is unknown but has been a moving target: in February, President Zelenskyy talked about needing a force of between 100,000 and 150,000. At the time, the Ministry of Defence carelessly allowed the idea to circulate that the UK might contribute 20,000 troops. In March, Starmer talked about 30,000 troops. The following month, the chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, consulted with his military colleagues in the coalition of the willing about generating a force of 64,000, and was told that not only was that utterly unrealistic, but that less than half that number, even 25,000, would be extremely challenging. Once again, UK ministers are trumpeting an idea that by definition cannot come to fruition. Without a ceasefire, putting boots on the ground in Ukraine is impossible; even if there were a ceasefire, the UK does not have the resources, especially in terms of artillery and logistics, to assemble anything more than a battlegroup of maybe 1,000 soldiers. Even our current commitments are stretching us. For context, Russia is estimated to have 600,000 soldiers in and around Ukraine. John Healey seems to have retreated into a comforting game of 'what if?', supposing that every eventuality he wants has come to pass and is then telling the media what the UK would do. Increasingly, though, he is talking not about potential outcomes but doors which have already closed. What if Russia agreed to a ceasefire, what if Putin moderated his demands, what if Russia and Ukraine could find an acceptable long-term settlement? As Jake says in the closing pages of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, 'Isn't it pretty to think so?'
