The EUMAM-UA mission to train Ukrainian soldiers for the defence of their country exceeded the 4,000 troops already trained in Spain in May, and has provoked repeated messages of thanks from the Ukrainian authorities, but the machinery is not working smoothly. Counterintelligence work carried out by Ukrainian secret service agents in the country has caused friction between the Armed Forces and the political command of the Defence Department, sources in the department headed by Minister Margarita Robles confirmed to El Periódico de Catalunya, part of the same editorial group as this newspaper.
This is not a case of espionage against Spain, nor has it been interpreted as such by the authorities, but it is a case of overreach by the SBU - the Ukrainian intelligence service - monitoring possible threats to the security of the contingents of recruits being trained in barracks in, among other places, Toledo, Cádiz and the town of Sant Climent Sescebes in the Girona region.
A tense moment took place last January, at the height of EUMAM-UA, when an SBU officer left his base in Toledo, without documentation to move around Spain and on unauthorised duties, such as seeking information about citizens with Spanish nationality influenced by or compromised with the Kremlin.
The officer who left his barracks at the Infantry Academy in Toledo travelled to Madrid in the first week of January, according to military sources. His objective was to obtain information about pro-Russian activists and entities that promote or participate in events such as talks in clubs or the March of the Immortal Regiment, which every spring commemorates the Soviet victory over the Nazis in World War II in the streets.
In this environment there are not only Russians, but also sympathisers with Spanish nationality and documentation, which provoked the irritation of the army command when the agent was caught. After receiving an internal report describing the facts, in the week of 15 January the Defence Chief of Staff, headed by Admiral Teodoro Esteban López Calderón, decided to expel the agent discovered there from Spain. The order was cancelled because the political command of the Ministry of Defence requested that it not be carried out, in order to avoid a disagreement with the Ukrainian authorities.
Collaboration between the Spanish and Ukrainian intelligence services was already underway before President Sánchez and President Zelenski signed the defence agreement between the two countries at La Moncloa on 28 May. One of the main points of the agreement is a cooperation pact on intelligence and counterintelligence, but in practice information has been shared for more than two years, according to State Security sources.
Spain has compensated for its lack of information on the northeast of Europe - which has been growing since the beginning of the war - with a stable CNI antenna in Ukraine. In turn, Kiev sends its intelligence agents to Spain with the knowledge of the state. A different type of flow has become more frequent since the start of the EUMAM-UA mission in December 2022.
They are officers of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), which reports to President Zelensky and is the country's main spy agency. Its director, Vasyl Vasyliovych Maliuk, is a priority target for Moscow.
The presence of agents with the Ukrainian conscripts - from the SBU (Lieutenant Colonel Petrov V.A., Major Kovandra V.N., Captain Matveev A.A.) and not the Directorate of Military Intelligence (GUR, in Latin characters), which reports to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence - has been detected by the army on at least three occasions, twice in Toledo and once in Cadiz. They come to Spain accompanying soldiers who are to receive combat training or training in the use of anti-aircraft artillery and tanks, among other subjects.
The SBU agents travelling with the Ukrainian contingents arrive in uniform like the others, on "base-to-base" flights. That is, they depart from a military airfield in Poland and land in Torrejón, Zaragoza or Rota. As the flight is entirely military and the passengers will remain in barracks during the course of the flight, the soldiers do not undergo passport control or visa stamps. Neither do the flanking intelligence agents, who will be with the soldiers throughout their stay in Spain and will leave with them at the end of the course.
At least 17 such flights have already taken place since last autumn, chartered by the Spanish Armed Forces and many with large numbers of passengers: one with 195 people returning to Ukraine on 17 May, and another arriving on 16 December with 201 new students to follow a Basic Recruit module, or basic combat training.
In these transfers, they may coincide with the rank-and-file troops from more specialised units. Forty of them arrived on 8 January to learn how to operate Hawk anti-aircraft missile batteries, and left on 5 February. Among the latest flights, 1 June brought a new rotation of 200 soldiers who will receive basic operational training.
Sources believe that Ukraine deploys these SBU officers to provide security, as well as surveillance, for its troops. This includes not only preventing recruits from misbehaving, fighting, getting drunk or leaving the base, but also preventing sabotage against the contingent. It was as part of this threat assessment that the agent detected moving around Madrid was trying to obtain information about Russian influence in Spain... which also affects Spanish citizens.
This case has not been the only cog in the wheel. There have also been discussions in Defence about a no minor security detail: the security screening of the interpreters who translate the lessons given to the recruits by the Spanish military, and who work in an outsourced service that is covered by contract.
In the teaching programme there are numerous subjects that involve the explanation of the handling of explosives, their deactivation or their use. This is knowledge that can be dangerous if it gets out of control when the war is over.
An internal military report alerted the Defence political command to this risk, army sources confirm. Extreme security measures regarding the selection of interpreters, say ministry sources, was one of the reasons that led the ministry to change the previous contract last summer, which is now in the hands of Eulen and valued at seven million euros.
These same sources assure that now "all interpreters are perfectly evaluated and controlled, in conditions of maximum security", and the climate in the EUMAM mission is "very cordial".
