An espionage scandal rocks Austria, laying bare alleged Russian spying operations across Europe

12 comments

1. > Between 2017 and 2021, the Austrian warrant says, Ott collected sensitive information on people of interest to Russia “for the purpose of transmission to Jan Marsalek and to unknown representatives of Russian authorities” by conducting numerous searches in national police databases and making requests to other European police officers, including in Italy and Britain.

   > Ott also allegedly requested data from the information system of Europe’s border-free travel area to ascertain whether suspected Russian operatives and former Wirecard employees were wanted or subject to travel restrictions.

2. This is still the Wirecard story from Germany btw. It just evolved into something I would call unrealistic if I ever saw it in a movie but here we are. How the hell can the biggest financial scandal in the history of Germany turn into the biggest espionage scandal since the end of the Cold War (probably since the Guillaume affair)?

3. Time to pull Austria out of the Schengen Area if you ask me.

4. So Austria is the weak link in Schengen area? Who would have thought

5. Oh, I can’t believe this, Austercunts doing espionage for Terrorussia…?!

6. My home country is such a fucking embarrassment.

7. What about American spying operations and influence in Europe? Are we going to continue ignoring that? When are our politicians going to decide what’s best for EU instead of what’s best for US’ interests?

8. Yay to more expressed concerns and strongly-worded letters!

9. Russia has a massive spy base in its Dublin embassy. 2nd biggest embassy in the world after the US. Seems well suspect for a stupid wee tiny country like Ireland.

10. The kgb agent must have fucked this nerd’s brains out. Holyshit.

11. I mean that should surprise no one, Austria is known for hosting a shit ton of Russian spies

12. Pardon me the phrase but it might be reasonable to “drain the swamp”