104
Czech efforts to limit the movement of Russian diplomats-spies in the EU are being blocked by Germany
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.
So the Czech government believes it is impossible to monitore 2000 Russian embassy staff in the entire EU? Some of them are children and a lot of them will not be actually spies.
Also keep in mind that the EU has spies in Russia as well and quite a lot of them will be embassy staff.
They aren't claiming the children are spies but that the diplomats are.
Sorry, I wrote that wrong. It has to be 2000 with Russian embassy passports, which includes families and therefore children. Point is, that it should be entirly possible to monitor them.
Certainly easier then monitoring all national borders in the entire Schengen area for Russian embassy staff.
The solution is to kick out Russian diplomatic staff. That makes monitoring them easier.
Monitoring them anywhere in the schengen is easier than monitoring them at specific and significantly smaller subset of anywhere (at the borders)?
That's absurd and not smart statement.
That would be optimal. However if someone objects to solution of lesser intensity, then this optimal one is not likely to succeed, is it?
Yes! How do you know they are crossing a border in Schengen? There are not permanent border checkpoints and few border patrols. So you have to be lucky to catch them in a random patrol. So you either have to know their locations at all times, hence monitor them anywhere, or you need to reintroduce border checkpoints all across the Schengen Area, which means staffing thousands of km of borders and monitoring the rest of the borders for illegal crossings as well. Obviously that destroys the entire advantage of Schengen in the first place.
Germany expelled so many embassy staff that Russia shut down 4 out of 5 consulats. Italy also kicked out a bunch of diplomatic staff.
You know that when you find them on the other side of it. And being on the wrong side of the border is easier to prove than the fact they are going to commit terrorist act.
Which can happen. It also excludes them from the air travel, for example, so it makes their terrorism harder, which is our goal.
Others did as well. And then the fuckers can just freely come from some other country that did not, which is what this discussion is about.
Embassies are used to coordinate spies. The actual terrorists often have had contacts with the embassy spy staff, but they use other passports. So by monitoring the embassy staff, you are able to find the actual terrorist spies. So when you find a Russia diplomat in the wrong country, you start to follow them.
Yes, but russians have more ways to deal with spies that are frowned upon in open, democratic societies.
If you want to believe that...
The CIA operated a network of so called "black sites" in Europe , which were undeclared operations for torture and abduction of people. While not formally recognized, the countries like Germany must have know about them and aided in their operations or prevented legal repercussions for the people involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites
The only difference is in how discrete they are about their methods, but intelligence agencies are equally violent all around the world.
Thanks, good to be reminded.
But I disagree that all intelligence agencies are the same around the world (or at least how they use the legal system to punish dissent)
e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/europe/ksenia-karelina-russia-america-sentence-treason-intl/index.html
or
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wu
or
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/journalist-ryanair-plane-diverted-by-belarus-jailed-8-years-state-media-2023-05-03/
If you have equivalent situations in western countries (besides Assange) where people were denied habeas corpus, please share
Thanks for this comment. I really didn't think of this.