{"id":40619,"date":"2026-06-29T06:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T06:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40619\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T06:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T06:21:09","slug":"alleged-russian-spies-kira-and-igor-korolev-charged-with-new-espionage-offence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40619\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged Russian spies Kira and Igor Korolev charged with new espionage offence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Two Russian-born Australian citizens accused of attempting to spy for Russia have been charged with a more serious offence, with the initial offence dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">On Monday the Brisbane Magistrates Court married couple Kira and Igor Korolev appeared by video link side-by-side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Crown prosecutors presented a new bench charge for the couple of conspiracy to commit espionage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It&#8217;s alleged the offence occurred between January 2023 and July 2024 in Brisbane and Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In 2024, they were arrested at their Brisbane home and charged over allegedly attempting to gather and send state secrets to Russia.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Signs and markers pointing to Brisbane's Magistrates Court\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782714067_87_3daeaa6cbf4b1cd680ec7de168507113.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Crown prosecutors in the Brisbane Magistrates Court asked the judge to dismiss an earlier espionage charge against the couple. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Ms Korolev was an army private working as an Information Systems Technician at the time, the Australian Federal Police had said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">She allegedly had taken long-term leave from the Australian Defence Force (ADF), before taking part in &#8220;non-declared travel&#8221; to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The couple had initially each been charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offence, which carries a 15-year maximum sentence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Composite of a man and woman smiling.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/b8284699abb00f3412eff2e003bd6f18.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Kira and Igor Korolev were arrested and charged in 2024, accused of attempting to gather and send state secrets to Russia. (Youtube\/Facebook)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Brisbane Magistrates Court heard Crown prosecutors today asked the judge for that charged to be dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Kira and Igor Korolev were remanded in custody with their matter adjourned until early August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Russian-born Australian citizens accused of attempting to spy for Russia have been charged with a more serious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1758,99,1958,8005,1110,31493,32651,10585,32652,241,32650],"class_list":["post-40619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-australian-federal-police","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-magistrates-court","tag-charges","tag-courts","tag-espionage","tag-igor-korolev","tag-kira-korolev","tag-prosecutors","tag-russia","tag-spying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}