Foreign intelligence agents of the Russian Federation detained in Slovenia

In Slovenia, two foreign citizens who were spying for Russia have been exposed in Ljubljana.

The suspects are facing up to eight years in prison for espionage and providing false information.

According to unofficial information, two Russian agents with citizenship of one of the South American countries (at least one of them has Argentine citizenship) were working under false names and were detained in a rented office in an office building in the Bežigrad district of Ljubljana.

The District State Prosecutor’s Office in Ljubljana has started pre-trial proceedings at the request of the Slovenian Intelligence and Security Service.

The two Russian agents are believed to have been in service with Russian military intelligence and worked under the “sleeper agent” program.

Most of such agents have false documents and citizenship of third countries, often from South American countries, and most of them work under the cover of GRU military intelligence.

Though it was initially reported that the detainees worked for the GRU (Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).

However, one source with knowledge of behind-the-scenes manoeuvres said to The Guardian that in informal conversations, Moscow had quickly accepted that Maria Mayer and Ludwig Gisch worked for SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation).

According to him, backdoor negotiations are currently underway between Moscow and western countries to exchange them for foreigners imprisoned in Russia.

Last time such a big failure of the SVR took place was more than 10 years ago, when a network of illegal agents was uncovered in the USA.

Ludwig Gisch lived under an Argentine passport, in which the country of birth was indicated as Namibia.

A large stash of cash found during the office search suggests that the pair’s duties involved paying informants. There was an enormous amount of cash; so much, in fact, that it took hours to count, The Guardian clarifies.