Romania-Russia Tensions Escalate over Spy Scandal

Authorities in Bucharest (picture) are outraged at Russia deporting a senior Romanian diplomat over spying allegations. File photo

Romania has condemned Russia for arresting and expelling one of its senior diplomats, threatening to retaliate by deporting in return a Russian envoy, BBC writes Wednesday.

According to the British media, the Romanian Foreign Ministry had announced it would "declare a diplomat in the [Russian] Embassy - with an equivalent ranking - as persona non grata".

Meanwhile, reports in Bulgarian media named the diplomat in question as Anatoliy Akopov, First Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Bucharest. Akopov has been given 48 hours to leave Romania.

On Monday, Russia's FSB security agency said it had caught diplomat Gabriel Grecu "red-handed" while spying and gave him 48 hours to leave the country, but the Romanian Foreign Ministry called the move a "severe breach by Russian authorities of the 1961 Vienna Convention regarding diplomatic relations".

The FSB explain Grecu was detained "during an attempt to receive secret information of a military nature from a Russian citizen".

In a further statement published by the Russian Interfax news agency the Russian authorities stated: "In addition to open political information, Grecu ordered the Russian citizen to pass over documents containing military secrets to him. After that, citizen M, realizing that the Romanian spy was inducing him to commit treason, voluntarily reported this to the FSB and said he was ready to cooperate with the security agencies to prevent the diplomat's unlawful activities."

The statement noted the documents, if passed to foreign special services, would have resulted in significant damage to Russia's security interests, and therefore "it was decided to stop Grecu's spying activity".

On Wednesday, Interfax published another story informing Grecu was interested in details about the location of Russian military units in the area known as Pridnestrovie or Transnistria, which is a breakaway territory located mostly in a strip between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine.

The latest report further says a Russian serviceman is under arrest in connection with the case and the latter has been recruited by Grecu’s predecessor.

 

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