1/8/2023 0 Comments Russian music keys![]() ![]() Russia’s feared military intelligence directorate, the GRU, has been particularly active in the country: as well as hitting WADA, agents it sent to target the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague were working from Swiss bases in 2018. Since 2017, a probe by the Swiss attorney-general has been investigating a huge Russian spying organisation against the World Anti-Doping Agency and other sporting bodies, including the Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Lausanne. The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service concluded in a 2018 report that one in four Russian diplomats based in Switzerland was a spy. While Switzerland has long been a playground for Russia’s wealthy émigrés, more recent reports have identified the state - by long tradition a diplomatically neutral no man’s land, at the heart of Europe - as a hub of Russian intrigue. Switzerland’s security services have been particularly jumpy about increased Russian intelligence activity in the country in recent years. Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images World Economic Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab attends a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of World Economic Forum during the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, on January 20, 2020. But some disclosures give a sense of their scale: the cost of car rental alone for officials from the White House Communications Agency - who ensure the integrity and encryption of presidential communications - will be $266,000 for the two-day trip. The total costs for Mr Trump - who gave the conference’s keynote speech on Tuesday - are not fully broken down, due to their classified nature. Alongside Mr Trump - and his retinue, among them his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner - other leaders of potential interest to the Kremlin attending this year include president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam, not to mention hundreds of chief executives and senior government officials.Īttendees spend tens of millions on their personal security at Davos. Though many may doubt how much actionable intelligence even the most subtle of agents could lift from the World Economic Forum, the gathering is nevertheless a rare concentration of global power and influence that is tempting to spymasters. The Russian embassy in Bern did not respond to a request for comment. Article contentĪccording to Zürich’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, which carried a detailed report of the incident, police and Swiss federal officials suspected the pair of being Russian intelligence agents, posing as tradesmen in order to install surveillance equipment at key facilities around the town to monitor the private conversations of the world’s powerful and wealthy during the World Economic Forum on behalf of the Kremlin. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
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