Austria ordered three Russian diplomats out of the country on Monday, saying a “forest of antennas” on the roofs of Russian diplomatic buildings in Vienna had been used to spy. By the time the government made the announcement, the three had already left.
Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger did not soften her language. “It is unacceptable that diplomatic immunity is used for espionage,” she said. In a statement to the BBC she added that the government had “brought about a change of course” and was acting decisively, a message Vienna had passed to the Russian side, “particularly with regard to the forest of antennas at the Russian embassy.”
Dishes on the roofs
The Austrian broadcaster ORF reported, and the foreign ministry confirmed, that the equipment sits on the Russian embassy and on a Russian diplomatic compound. Satellite dishes crowd the buildings used by the Russian state, especially a residential complex for diplomatic staff. Austria’s main domestic security service, the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence, has flagged them for years. According to ORF, they let Russia pick up data sent by satellite internet, including traffic belonging to international organisations.
Asked at a press conference why these installations were a particular danger, the directorate’s head, Silvija Majer, said only that it came down to their size and nature. She declined to say why the expulsions came now.
The three diplomats were attached to the embassy and to Russia’s mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Russian embassy said. Austria has now expelled 14 Russian diplomats since 2020.
Moscow answers
The embassy posted a statement on its website calling the move “entirely unjustified, purely politically motivated and categorically unacceptable.” It went on: “Moscow will undoubtedly respond harshly to these completely ill-considered actions on the part of the Austrian side.”
A city built for listening
Vienna has carried a reputation as a spy capital since the years when the Allies divided it into sectors after World War II. Neutral Austria sat close to the Iron Curtain, which made it a handy listening post during the Cold War. Today the city hosts the OSCE and United Nations bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. Bigger powers, Russia and the United States among them, often keep separate ambassadors for Austria, the OSCE and the UN agencies, each heading an embassy or mission. That arrangement hands intelligence officers diplomatic immunity as cover.
Austria’s latest Report on the Protection of the Constitution described Vienna as “one of the last remaining locations for Russian signals intelligence in Europe.” It tied that to “the large number of Russian diplomatic staff” in the capital, and warned that Austria’s international reputation “is being damaged.” About 220 people are still accredited to Russian missions in the country.
Other cases
The expulsions follow several spy cases involving Austria and Germany. In January a former intelligence official, Egisto Ott, went on trial in Vienna in what was called the country’s biggest spy trial in years. He is charged with passing information to Russian intelligence officers and to Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former Wirecard executive, allegedly in return for payment. His lawyer, Anna Mair, has rejected the allegations, and the trial continues.
Marsalek, an Austrian citizen, is accused of working as an asset for Russia’s FSB. German police want him over alleged fraud, and he is subject to an Interpol Red Notice. He is thought to be in Moscow after fleeing through Austria in 2020.
Germany, also in January, said it had expelled a person accused of spying for Russia and summoned the Russian ambassador. Its foreign ministry wrote that it did not tolerate espionage, “particularly not under the cover of diplomatic status.”
Sources
- Austria expels three Russian diplomats over signals espionage
- Three Russian diplomats expelled from Austria over spy claims
