Investigations into the Kremlin's links with the 'procés' requested by the EU have been in the Spanish courts for years

This Thursday, the European Parliament approved a non-binding resolution to demand that the “competent judicial authorities” “effectively” investigate Russian intervention to try to destabilize certain regions of the EU. Among other points, the Chamber urges to investigate the alleged links of the Catalan independence movement with Moscow during the processes. It remains to be seen how this proposal materializes. But, since the secessionist challenge broke out in 2017, at least two legal cases have been opened in Spain regarding this alleged relationship, without anyone having yet been charged with treason, and the presence of spies has been detected on key dates, before and during the illegal October 1 referendum. The National Intelligence Center (CNI) has also warned in several reports about disinformation campaigns promoted by the Kremlin.

Financing and 10,000 supposed soldiers. The main investigation in Spain into alleged Russian interference in the processes It is the one directed, for four years, by Barcelona judge Joaquín Aguirre. The magistrate investigates the meetings that, in the days before the failed unilateral declaration of independence, the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont held with individuals who, allegedly, have connections with the Kremlin. The head of Puigdemont's office in Waterloo, Josep Lluís Alay, is being investigated in the case; the computer scientist Jaume Cabaní and the former leader of Convergència Víctor Terradellas.

The telephone conversations that Terradellas had in May 2018 with two former politicians and businessmen who helped organize the 1-O independence referendum were the origin of the case. The former CDC leader explained that people linked to Vladimir Putin offered up to 10,000 soldiers and financial aid for secession if, in exchange, Catalonia recognized Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Aguirre opened the voloh case and, in October 2020, he ordered various arrests. Sources from the intelligence services assure that it was proven that the Russian interlocutors had close connections with the Kremlin; Another thing, they clarify, is that the offer to send 10,000 soldiers—under the pretext of a supposed peace force, like the ones Russia maintains in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova—was a dream. “The objective was to encourage Puigdemont with his promises to take the step,” explain the aforementioned sources.

The case seemed to be in a state of lethargy until, on January 29, one day before the vote on the amnesty law in Congress, the judge issued an order that, in addition to extending the investigation for six months, cited for the first crimes that are not covered by the amnesty. The judge considers that those involved maneuvered to alter the territorial unity of Spain by seeking alliances with Russia, which may involve a crime of treason, expressly excluded in the text of the amnesty. The decision of Aguirre – who has been the subject of a challenge by the defense for giving an interview to German public television talking about the case – represents one more obstacle so that, if necessary, Puigdemont can benefit from the amnesty.

Sending spies. Previously, in November 2019, another court, in this case the National Court, had initiated an investigation into the presence of Russian espionage agents in Catalonia in the months prior to the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017 and their alleged contacts with people linked to the independence process. The Police had opened Operation Volka (wolf in Russian) after verifying the passage through Barcelona of General Denis Sergeiev, alias Sergei Fedotov, just 48 hours before the consultation called by Carles Puigdemont's Executive was held. Sergeyev is a prominent member of the Central Intelligence Department of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU), an elite unit of the Russian army that, in recent years, the intelligence services of several countries have linked to alleged destabilization maneuvers in Europe, such as the poisoning in March 2018 of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the United Kingdom.

The investigations began with information provided to the Police by a confidant, part of which was known after being published in Bellingcat, a portal created in 2014 by a group of investigative journalists specialized in data verification techniques and the use of open source sources for their information. This informant went on to provide the identity of five senior officials of the Russian intelligence services, including a woman, who were supposedly involved, as well as details of three foreign financial entities from which funds had allegedly been transferred to finance the movements of the spies through Europe, as well as credit cards used. However, after nine months of police investigations without significant progress, in June 2020 the Prosecutor's Office presented a document requesting that the case be archived. The judge did so a month later.

Disinformation campaigns. The third leg of Russian interference in the processes was the launch of massive disinformation campaigns through social networks. RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, two media outlets linked to the Kremlin, became the great speakers of the independence theses, bouncing millions of messages thanks to an army of bots. To multiply its echo in the Spanish-speaking community, the Russian media relied on accounts from the Chavista environment in Venezuela, according to various studies. At the height of the process, A list of countries that were supposedly willing to recognize an independent Catalan State was disseminated, which would prove false; and, after 1-O, they spread images of police charges at polling stations mixed with others unrelated to the referendum. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Spain in November 2018, his Spanish counterpart, Josep Borrell, expressed his “concern about fake news” about Catalonia. The Russian offered to create a bilateral forum to “combat disinformation.” It never got started. Both the United States Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and the British Parliament echoed Russian interference in the processes.

With information from JJ Galvez

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