European Union states begin requiring advance transit notices from Russian diplomats
February 2, 2026 2 Comments
AT LEAST THREE EUROPEAN Union members states now require Russian diplomats who are not accredited in their territories to notify them prior to entering their borders. According to the new requirement, Russian diplomats must provide advance notification if they intend to travel to, or transit through, a European Union country in which they are not accredited.
For instance, a Russian diplomat accredited in Germany and stationed at the Russian embassy in Berlin, must provide France with advance notice if they intend to travel there or transit through French territory en route to a third destination. The new rule was first reported late last month by Russia’s state-affiliated RIA Novosti news agency and picked up by the investigative news site The Insider.
Citing Russian diplomatic sources, RIA Novosti said three European Union states, Austria, France, and the Netherlands, had contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with information about the new requirement. The Insider said last week it was unclear whether other European Union states had already issued similar restrictions against Russian diplomats.
The measure is included in the 19th Package of Sanctions against Russia, which the European Union adopted in October 2025. The text of the sanctions package includes “an obligation for Russian diplomats, travelling across the EU beyond their country of accreditation, to inform the relevant EU Member State in advance”. It also notes that the measure is “meant to tackle the increasingly hostile intelligence activities that support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 February 2026 | Permalink
INTELLIGENCE PARTNERS IN THE North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are “not talking openly” anymore, while authorities in Denmark have advised government officials to disable Bluetooth functions on their devices due to spying concerns. According to reports in British news outlets, intelligence-sharing functions inside NATO are at a breaking point following a series of actions by the United States that one source 
EARLIER THIS MONTH, FRANCE-based British reporter Chris Bockman was given rare access to a training course designed collaboratively by a leading French university and France’s intelligence services. The course is part of the Diplôme sur le Renseignement et les Menaces Globales (Diploma of Intelligence and Global Threats), which is offered by the Institut d’études politiques de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (known as Sciences Po Saint-Germain), located on the northwestern outskirts of Paris.
IN THE CONCLUDING WEEKS of 2025, the Israel Intelligence Agency (ISA), which serves as its primary internal security and counterintelligence service, experienced two rapturous events that shook the organization to its very foundations. One was the appointment of Major General (retired) David Zini as the organization’s head. The other was the sudden retirement of the its deputy, known as ‘S’ (the first letter of his first name), who had been appointed to that position just two months earlier.
IN LATE NOVEMBER 2025 news broke that the selection for the new director of Austria’s domestic intelligence service, the 
technology—which earned her the title of an engineer—Mayer joined the Austrian uniformed police in Linz, the country’s third largest city.
A FORMER DEEP COVER Russian intelligence officer, whose cover was blown in 2010 when he was arrested in the United States, is spearheading efforts by the Kremlin to secure investments by India’s technology sector. The spy, Andrei Bezrukov, was recruited by the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) in the late 1970s or early 1980s—most likely alongside his wife, Elena Vavilova. For several years, the married couple lived in several countries, including Canada and France, before arriving in the United States in 1999 using fraudulently obtained Canadian passports.
IN A RARE MEDIA interview, the chief of Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) has said that his agency’s collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other American spy organizations continues unabated. This statement appears to contradict a prior statement by the president of Colombia, who said his country had stopped all intelligence-sharing with the United States in protest against the lethal targeting of civilian vessels in the Caribbean.
FRENCH AUTHORITIES HAVE ARRESTED three individuals and placed a fourth person under supervision after scrutinizing the operations of a humanitarian organization suspected of being a front for Russian intelligence. The arrests were 
A BRITISH MAN WANTED by American authorities for spying for China, who disappeared along with his Chinese handler while under house arrest, may have managed to escape to China using a private jet, a report claims. John Miller, 63, from Tunbridge Wells in the United Kingdom, was arrested alongside his alleged Chinese handler, Cui Guanghai, in April of this year.
THE MOSSAD, ISRAEL’S PRIMARY covert action agency, had “some 100 agents” on the ground in Iran at the start of the Twelve-Day War, according to senior Israeli government officials who participated in a television documentary. The 
PROSECUTORS IN VIENNA HAVE charged a former intelligence officer with spying for Russia in a high-profile case that has had broad political ramifications in Austria and abroad. The criminal case centers on Egisto Ott, a former employee of Austria’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT). The BVT operated as Austria’s primary domestic intelligence agency from 2002 until its dissolution in 2021.
IN A SERIES OF leaked recordings, the former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, Major General Aharon Haliva, has expressed strong views about Israel’s war in Gaza. General Haliva headed Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (known as Aman) on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants took Israel by surprise in a combined arms attack, killing over 1,200 and kidnapping 250. Since resigning a year ago, Haliva has not made any public statements.
intelNews.org 
Poland to probe alleged ties between Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence
February 6, 2026 by Ian Allen Leave a comment
THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND has announced plans to launch an investigation into the possibility that an international sex trafficking ring set up by the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a “honey trap” set up by Russian intelligence to entrap “the elites of the Western world,” according to Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk announced the commencement of what he referred to as a “special investigation” at a press conference on Wednesday, following a senior-level government meeting. He told reporters that the investigation would be led by members of the Office of the Prime Minister in association with the Ministry of Justice and the Polish intelligence services.
In 2008 a Florida court convicted Epstein—a jet-setting financier with links to hundreds of prominent individuals in finance, politics, industry, and academia—for sex offences. The disgraced financier was found dead in his jail cell in 2019. Prosecutors in the United States say they have identified over 100 victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, but some estimates claim that as many as 1,000 other victims have yet to come forward.
At last week’s press conference, a stern-looking Tusk pointed to Epstein’s large fortune, describing it as “unexplained” and adding that it raised important questions about the late financier’s links with state actors. He reminded his audience that “a growing number of commentators and experts assume that it is highly probable that this pedophilia scandal was a premeditated operation by the Russian KGB”—a term still frequently used in Eastern European countries to refer to the post-Soviet intelligence community.
The operation may have been a “so-called ‘honey trap’, a sweet bait, a trap set for the elites of the Western world, primarily the United States,” Tusk said. The Polish prime minister then added: “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organized this operation is.” Among other things, it could “mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” He added that investigators would systematically review and assess “every document currently available in the public domain.”
In a social media post later that day, Russian businessman Kirill Dimitriev, who last year was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russia’s special presidential envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation, dismissed the Polish government’s move. According to Dimitriev, all allegations about connections between Epstein and Russian intelligence are “lies” spread by “leftist elites.”
► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 06 February | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Donald Tusk, espionage, honey traps, Jeffrey Epstein, News, Poland, Russia