The Spanish gendarmerie says that the Kremlin tried to use in Catalonia the same occupation tactics it used in Crimea (translation in comments)

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  1. **Translation 1/**

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    The EU will investigate Russian interference in Catalonia, which according to the Civil Guard responds to a “geopolitical strategy of destabilization” similar to that used in Ukraine.The European Parliament has agreed this week to ask the European Union to open an investigation into the covert operations carried out by the Kremlin to support the Catalan independence movement.The newspaper The New York Times uncovered last September the trips to Moscow made in the spring of 2019 by the head of Carles Puigdemont’s office in Waterloo, Josep Lluís Aloy, to meet with former members of Russian intelligence, with the in order to garner the support of Vladimir Putin’s regime.During the investigation of the Volhov operation, the Civil Guard intercepted a recording in which the president of the CATMon Foundation, Víctor Terradellas, assured that, after the illegal referendum on 1-O, Putin had offered Puigdemont “10,000 Russian soldiers” to implement the declaration of independence.The judge in the Volhov case, Joaquín Aguirre, is also investigating whether Puigdemont’s “Consell de la República” has financed itself with an operation to sell Russian gas to China for an amount of 6 million dollars, carried out by the businessman resident in Catalonia Alexander Dmitrenko (who maintains close ties to Russian intelligence, according to the CNI).These are some of the signs of Russian interference in Catalonia that the European Union (EU) should investigate:

    1. As in CrimeaIn its reports addressed to the judge, the Civil Guard maintains that the Kremlin has used a “geopolitical strategy of destabilization” in Catalonia -also through its media outlets Russia Today and Sputnik-, similar to those it used in March 2014 to promote Crimea’s independence from Ukraine.In that case, after the fall of the Viktor Yanukovych government in Ukraine, several thousand people demonstrated on the Crimean Peninsula to demand annexation to Russia. Putin deployed troops to the border of both countries, under the pretext of protecting the “Russian-speaking population” residing in Ukraine.During the clashes on February 27 and 28, armed groups seized several official buildings in Crimea, where they raised the Russian flag, and the airports of Sevastopol and Simferopol. The Government of Ukraine denounced that there had already been, in fact, an act of “Russian invasion” on its territory.The self-proclaimed head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksionov, then requested Russian military aid and announced the call for an independence referendum to be held on March 16. It was the previous step for Aksionov to sign with Putin, two days later, the annexation of his territory to Russia.Eight years later, the Putin regime is now once again threatening the integrity of Ukraine’s territory, with an unprecedented military deployment on its borders with Russia and Ukraine, which has led to the mobilization of NATO and the US.
    2. Bring in 10,000 Russian soldiersThe Civil Guard intervened a recording in which Víctor Terradellas explained to Xavier Vendrell (also charged in the Volhov case) that “on the 24th [October 2017, three days before the declaration of independence] we had the head of Russia come, they paid all the debt […] These people told the president [Puigdemont] if he wanted 10,000 soldiers here.”When Vendrell asks if the Russian troops would enter through the airport, Terradellas adds: “They do it like a beast, they put a ship in you.” Xavier Vendrell (former Minister of the Interior of the Generalitat and former Terra Lliure terrorist) did not see the operation clearly because “if Russia intervenes within NATO, NATO reacts, what will NATO do?”Finally, Terradellas explains that it was not possible because “the president screwed up, he said he does not want to be responsible for people being killed, but you need 100 dead […] If you put a million people in the Plaza de Sant Jaume , they will have to kill to enter”. He then sentences: “We missed the rice, there were no balls. But the international situation will give us the opportunity again.”

  2. **Translation 2/**

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    It was not a simple “daydream”. The Civil Guard certifies that Víctor Terradellas (charged in the case because he received several million euros from the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Generalitat in allegedly irregular subsidies) maintained contacts as Puigdemont’s liaison with the former deputy of the Russian Duma Sergey Markov, to whom he promised that Catalonia would recognize the independence of Crimea, in exchange for military aid from Russia.

    3. Information war

    The Civil Guard appeals to the Crimean precedent to maintain that the Kremlin government carried out in the fall of 2017 in Catalonia an “information warfare strategy to destabilize Spain” as part of a “general narrative about a European Union on the verge of of collapse”, and that is the main message of the Kremlin-controlled media: Russia Today and Sputnik.Within this strategy, adds the Civil Guard, “disinformation and false news were spread, such as that [on the day of 1-O] the worst violence in Europe had been experienced since the Second World War and that Spain does not respect basic freedoms to vote.”In this regard, the researchers recall that the editor Oriol Soler (considered a member of the pro-independence staff and whose companies have received more than three million euros in contracts and subsidies from the Generalitat) traveled to Saint Petersburg on June 5, 2017. And then, on September 9 (three weeks before the illegal 1-O referendum), he met at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London with Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, who “disseminated thousands of messages in support of the Catalan independence movement “.

    4. Sale of Russian gas

    The historian Josep Lluís Alay was arrested in Germany in March 2018, when he was accompanying Carles Puigdemont. The analysis of Alay’s mobile phone proves that the entire Puigdemont team has maintained close contact with the Russian businessman residing in Catalonia, Alexander Dmitrenko, who was denied Spanish nationality by the Ministry of Justice after the CNI issued the following report: ” There is proven knowledge of the conscious work of Alexander Dmitrenko for the Russian Intelligence Services, from which he receives missions, and contacts of this individual have been detected with some of the main leaders of transnational organized crime of Russian origin, for whom he also He does different jobs.”Dmitrenko sent Alay (head of the Puigdemont office in Waterloo) the documentation corresponding to an operation for the sale of Russian gas to the Chinese company Gulf Energy, which he had managed to close for six million dollars.The transaction suffered several delays because the Bank of Communications Co. Ltd, based in Hong Kong, refused to accept the transfer of $295,500 corresponding to the bond to a Russian financial institution, due to suspicions of money laundering. The gas shipment was moved by ship from a port on the Russian island of Sakhalin.In one of the Telegram chats used by Puigdemont’s collaborators in Waterloo, this gas sale operation was celebrated as a success for “all of us”, for which the Civil Guard is investigating whether it has served to finance the “Consell de la Republic” of Waterloo.Alexander Dmitrenko is a partner in the United Kingdom of Artem Lukoyanov, stepson of Vladislav Surkov, who was until February 2020 chief of staff and personal adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lukoyanov is also manager of the Rubitech company, which in 2020 obtained contracts from the Russian Government amounting to 128.6 million euros.

    5. Alay’s Spies

    The newspaper The New York Times revealed last September the contacts he has had with former Russian intelligence agents Josep Lluís Alay, as head of Puigdemont’s office in Waterloo.As Puigdemont’s emissary, Alay traveled to Moscow in the spring of 2019, where he met with Oleg V. Syromolotov (former director of the Russian national intelligence agency), Yevgeny Primakov (whom he defined as “Putin’s right-hand man in the Kremlin to international relations) and with Andrei Bezrukov, a former officer of the Russian intelligence service.The New York Times also points out that in October 2019, a few days after the violent occupation of El Prat airport orchestrated through the Tsunami Democràtic, Sergei Sumin (colonel of the Russian Federal Protection Service, an agency who oversees Putin’s security) and Artyom Lukoyanov, adopted son of a top Putin adviser and associate of the aforementioned Alexander Dmitrenko.

  6. Honestly,I think all this story of Russia in Catalonia is just a wet dream of a few overheated independentists.

  13. Spain says this Spain says that Spain does not follow the demands of EU council, UN and human rights organisations to document the crimes against humanity under Franco.

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