"The Russian Spy" is not a film. Federica Onori (Az) and Filippo Sensi (Pd) speak out

Rome. This is not fiction, nor is it a film. And we can no longer speak of Russian spies in Europe and Italy as if they were an exception or a plot device for political thriller writers. Indeed, says Federica Onori, MP for Azione and secretary of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whilst presenting the event “La guerra nell’ombra – spionaggio russo e sicurezza europea”, attended by Senators Filippo Sensi (PD) and Marco Lombardo (AZ), and Antonio Talia, a journalist for Il Sole 24 Ore and author of La stagione delle spie*; COPASIR Secretary Ettore Rosato; and a delegation from the Ukrainian Embassy: espionage activities in Italy and Europe form part of a real strategy, “stable and predating the invasion of Ukraine”; a strategy pursued using both traditional methods and digital tools, as well as through the careful examination of political vulnerabilities within the political landscape. “L’Italia è un obiettivo costante dei servizi segreti di Mosca,” says Onori at a time when, on a broader front, former Five Star Movement Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is asserting that Russia does not pose a threat to our country. And from the list of cases compiled by Talia, a network emerges in stark relief – documents in hand – that transcends national borders, with the Russian embassy in Rome acting as a hub. Once again, it sounds like a film, but unfortunately it is not: the nearly one hundred undercover agents; the two former intelligence officials selling confidential information to Moscow in exchange for money; ordinary citizens recruited on Telegram, ready – to solve a financial problem – to tread the fine line between the real truth and fake news. And there’s more: gardeners proliferating in an embassy to the point of seeming more numerous than the plants they’re meant to prune, expelled military attachés, and an investigation that touches on people still serving in the defence sector. Also significant is the incentive driving people with access to information – those facing financial or personal difficulties – to ‘enlist’, lured by easy money. The war of hackers and satellites has not entirely replaced, says Talia, the old methods: diplomatic cover, envelopes of cash, disgruntled sources. What is new, however, is the ‘uberisation’ of attacks: the recruitment via Telegram of people who, for relatively small sums and not out of ideology, are willing to set fire to, damage or photograph things. Small action, small cost, maximum result. Faced with all this, says Onori, we cannot act in a disorganised manner. “Italy’s protection depends on our ability to exchange information and coordinate responses with other NATO and EU countries.” Lombardo hopes that the issue will not remain confined to the sphere of COPASIR and the judiciary: “Prime Minister Conte, who spoke from the podium in Naples of a ‘fabricated Russian threat’,” he says, “is the same Prime Minister Conte who, as head of government, as his final act before his government fell, extradited a Russian spy – Colonel Korshunov, who is now at large – to Russia through the then Minister of Justice, Alfonso Bonafede? The problem is not just Putin, but the fragility of our liberal democracies and this dangerous erosion of values towards pro-Russian positions”. The important thing is not to downplay the issue. The risk, says Democratic Party Senator Filippo Sensi, “is becoming desensitised”: “Interference is often perceived as background noise”, yet it is “a deliberate, sustained, daily action”. The rest is down to war fatigue over Ukraine and polarisation: this is how society’s defences are lowered. “But Ukraine isn’t somewhere else, it’s right here,” says Sensi, and cyber-attacks, propaganda and the recruitment of informants are part of a full-blown ‘strategy of pressure’ on the European system.