Growing activity and interests of Russian intelligence in Switzerland

Switzerland that abstains from expelling Russian spies, might serve as new Russia’s espionage hub in Europe.

After Russian troops invaded Ukraine, over 500 Russian diplomats have been expelled from the West. Even former Russian allies have contributed to the growing list of expulsions —most recently Bulgaria, which expelled a near-unprecedented 70 Russian diplomats citing espionage concerns. Amidst that sea of expulsions, Switzerland is among a handful of European democracies that have yet to officially expel Russian diplomats. Abiding by its centuries-old policy of neutrality, it has resisted calls to take sides in the intelligence war between the West and Russia.

Geneva is an ideal transfer point for sensitive information collected by Russian intelligence, including outside of Switzerland.

There are indications that the number of Russian secret service employees in Switzerland has increased since the outbreak of the war. 

Russia has been able to take advantage of Switzerland’s neutrality policy since February. Instead of returning to Moscow, at least some of the expelled Russian diplomats have been reposted to Switzerland. They continue to operate there under a “no-questions-asked” policy, which has prevailed since the days of the Cold War. For this and other reasons (i.e. proximity to prime intelligence targets, safety, advanced telecommunications systems), Switzerland has been a major intelligence hub for decades. According to the Nachrichtendienst des Bundes (NDB), Switzerland’s Federal Intelligence Service, the past few years have witnessed higher levels of activity by foreign intelligence services than any other period since the Cold War.

According to the data of 2018, one in four Russian diplomats officially accredited in Switzerland was a security service employee.

Russia has been able to build a pan-European espionage hub in the small alpine state since then. That is the conclusion of a report by Jonas Roth, which was published last week in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Switzerland’s newspaper of record. The report, entitled “So Spioniert Russland in der Schweiz” (“How Russian spies operate in Switzerland”), features commentary by several experts and government officials. One source tells Roth that, despite the intense diplomatic pressure Russia has faced globally since February, its espionage structures in Swiss cities like Geneva and Bern “are still intact”.

According to the report, at least a third of Russia’s 220-strong diplomatic presence in the country consists of intelligence officers. These 70 or so intelligence officers represent all three of Russia’s primary intelligence agencies, namely the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Main Directorate of the Armed Forces’ General Staff (GRU), and the Federal Security Service (FSB). Officers from these agencies handle an unknown number of informants and agents; these are Swiss or third-country nationals, who provide the Russians with intelligence on a regular basis. Special activities are carried out by Russian intelligence personnel who travel to Switzerland on an ad hoc basis. 

According to the NZZ report, much of the work of Russian intelligence in Switzerland consists of current-affairs reporting that is of interest to Moscow. More than half of that is derived from publicly available —also known as ‘open’— sources, such as Swiss media outlets. Russian operations officers handle local agents, who provide them with classified or otherwise restricted information of a political, military, or economic nature. All other missions — mostly special activities— rely on intelligence professionals who travel to Switzerland, either to operate there, or to prepare for missions elsewhere in Europe. Lastly, there are Russian cyber-operations, which do not usually require the physical presence of operatives in Switzerland.

Russian intelligence activity in Switzerland in 2018, led to the arrest and expulsion from the Netherlands of two Russian agents accused of spying on the Swiss Laboratory for Radiological, Chemical and Biological Analysis in Labor Spiez, 36 km east of Bern. That lab was analyzing toxic substances, including those used by Russian troops in Syria.

ICT espionage targeting the military, economic and political structures of the Confederacy is likely to intensify in the near term. Aside from that, the Kremlin will seek to use Switzerland and its jurisdiction to evade the sanctions and get access to technology.

Russia carried out cyber intelligence against the RUAG Defense Company in January 2016.  There are grounds today to affirm HUMINT penetration by Russia into this company, and into the government of Bern, at the level of advisers.

That is facilitated by the fact that the Swiss FIS is unable to prevent such activities on Swiss soil, due to pro-privacy legislation, which meant that the agency’s ability to combat foreign espionage in Switzerland is “far more limited than in other countries”. However, the law has been toughened up recently.

Switzerland offers a target-rich environment for Russian intelligence. The NZZ report mentions numerous international organizations that are headquartered on Swiss soil. Those currently number over 250 and include the European Broadcasting Union, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Telecommunication Union, and the World Health Organization, among others. In addition to these targets, Switzerland is frequently the site of high-level diplomatic meetings, and hosts numerous high-powered research institutions, including ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Lastly, Russian intelligence operatives engage in surveillance —and occasionally intimidation— of members of the Russian expatriate community in Switzerland, who openly criticize the Kremlin.

Switzerland’s neutrality and a large number of espionage targets concentrated there promote the growth of Russian espionage activity in this country and increase in the number of Russian intelligence agents under diplomatic cover.

The Consul General of Russia in Geneva Dorovskikh Aleksey, 1978, for example, is a career officer of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

The Kremlin has established a network of expatriate agents in Switzerland who work as lawyers or accountants and highlight local citizens for further study and recruitment, including Russian-speaking ones who have left for Switzerland. Some diplomatic sources in Bern claim those people may include:

1. Roman Kudinov («LEOLEX Sàrl), Rue de Pré-Fleuri 19 C, CH-1950 Sion, 
2. Elza Reymond-Eniaeva, Sedlex Avocats,  1 avenue de la Gare CP (p/b) 7255 CH-1002 Lausanne.
3. Serguei LAKOUTINE, Rue du Général-Dufour 22, CH-1204 Genève. 
4. Dimitri Iafaev, Rappard, Romanetti, Iafaev & Avocats, 11 boulevard des Philosophes CH-1205 Genève.
5. Dmitry A. Pentsov, MLL Meyerlustenberger Lachenal Froriep Ltd,  65 rue du Rhône СР (п/я) 3199 CH-1211 Genève 3.

They are coordinating closely with the Russian Embassy, while the Consulate General and the Embassy recommend their services to Russian citizens living in this country, and facilitate obtaining basic information, compromising evidence and psychological profiles for further recruitment by Russian intelligence.