The Russian espionage threat has escalated sharply since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, experts warned on Wednesday, after it was revealed that three Bulgarians have been arrested under the Official Secrets Act.
Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 42, and Katrin Ivanova, 32, who are suspected of spying for the Kremlin, have been charged with “possession of false identity documents with improper intention”. They were allegedly holding 34 IDs including passports, some suspected to be fake.
Professor Anthony Glees, a security expert at the University of Buckingham, said any Russian recruitment of Bulgarian nationals as spies “should be of serious concern” to Britain.
“They’re not doing what they were previously doing, sending Russians over to the UK,” he told TalkTV. “So they appear to be recruiting — if these people are Bulgarians — people who are EU members who we would regard as our friends. The Russian threat facing this country has been extremely serious. I’m not surprised about it.”
He added: “We’ve got MI5, a world-class security service, but it spends 90 per cent of its time roughly on terrorism, on Islam and Right-wing terrorism, yet espionage is a major threat.”
Security sources have disputed the 90 per cent figure, however, and insist that MI5 spends significantly more of its resources on tackling hostile states.
The Met police said the trio were arrested in February with two other people, who have not been charged, and released on bail pending an Old Bailey trial.
Roussev lives in Great Yarmouth while Dzhambazov and Ivanova shared an address on Harrow High Road — where neighbours described them as a couple known as Max and Kate who fitted well into north London suburban life for a decade.
The pair were said to enjoy regular full English breakfasts at a local cafe and baked cakes and pies for their neighbours.
Simon Corsini said the pair were regular customers at his cafe, Gino’s, near their rented one-bedroom flat.
He said the couple did not stand out in Harrow, adding: “No one would give them a second glance.”
He added: “It is not something that you would expect, and it is quite a shock.
“I can’t say that I am worried. There have been three stabbings in Harrow and that worries me more.”
The couple were said to be well known among London’s Bulgarian community as they ran an organisation helping migrants to familiarise themselves with British life.
All three Bulgarians also had links to a flat in west London not far from the RAF Northolt military base on the A40, the Daily Telegraph reported. The base is often used for flights by members of the Royal Family, Government ministers and foreign leaders.
Neighbours in Great Yarmouth, where Roussev lived, said they could remember security personnel turning up there in February.
One, Moira Scott, said: “There was a big crime scene tent outside the door of the Haydee and there were a load of plain police vans with blacked-out windows.
“My first reaction was that someone had been murdered. There was a lot of men dressed in black clothes with their faces covered, coming and going. They had balaclavas on as if they didn’t want anyone to recognise them, which I thought was a bit weird. I couldn’t see their faces.”
Kremlin critic Bill Browder said the Russian espionage threat had escalated under the leadership of former KGB spymaster Vladimir Putin, and was growing more acute since his invasion of Ukraine.
“I think one of the most important countries for him is the UK because he and so many of the other people around him have assets and investments and other things hidden in the UK,” Mr Browder said on Times Radio.
“All MI5 resources were focused on Islamic terrorism and none were focused on Russian terrorism. And it turns out that Putin is just as much of a terrorist as Osama bin Laden.
“And I can promise you that the Russians do a much better job of flushing out our spies than vice versa.”
In the financial year to March 2021, MI5 spent 16 per cent of its budget on “hostile state activity” including by Russia. In his annual assessment of threats last year, MI5 director general Ken McCallum highlighted the Russian threat both before and since the war in Ukraine.
The UK has led Western expulsions of Russians since deporting 23 Russian diplomats following the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.
