On Thursday, 15 people at the Russian embassy in Norway were declared undesirable in the country. According to the Norwegian authorities, they are intelligence officers, but they have been in Norway as diplomats. In the picture we see an intelligence officer, Eduart Pilka, talking to his Norwegian source in a park outside Oslo. The meeting took place in the park in September 2021. The meeting in the park For the 63-year-old Russian man Eduart Pilka, the meeting in the park with a Norwegian source is probably a routine part of the job. According to PST, he works in the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR, the successor to the foreign section of the dreaded Soviet intelligence organization the KGB. The KGB employee who has become most famous is the current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. The job of Russian intelligence officers in Norway is, among other things, to recruit Norwegians to get them to give up secrets that benefit Russian interests – and could endanger Norwegian security. This September day in the park will be fateful for the Russian intelligence officer. Does he make any mistakes? We do not know. We only know that he is caught red-handed, and that he is promoted as an intelligence officer by the Norwegian security police, PST, who are monitoring the situation. REVEALED: Head of the department for counterintelligence in the Police’s security service, PST. Inger Haugland in front of the picture of the Russian intelligence officer and the Norwegian source. Photo: Tom Balgaard – When we work with such cases, we have to make some choices. We can choose to pursue the matter in a criminal court, and work to find and provide evidence that state secrets have been handed over. But we can also choose to end a relationship. That’s what Inger Haugland says. She is head of the department for counterintelligence in the Norwegian Police’s security service, PST. Haugland says that the damage has already been done, if the PST waits until state secrets have been handed over from the informant to the intelligence officer. – It cannot be reversed. In this case, PST chose to step in and break off the relationship before it went that far. Abusing the status as a diplomat Eduarat Pilka was born on 21 January 1960 in the Russian in Russia on the border with China. According to news’s information, he had almost just arrived in the country when he was photographed in the park. Pilka was registered a few days after the meeting with the Norwegian informant. He came to Norway as a Russian diplomat with criminal immunity. Then, according to PST, he abuses his status as a diplomat to work as a Russian agent, or intelligence officer, which is the term PST uses. What Pilka is not aware of is that PST has known for several years that Russian intelligence has “used the Norwegian as a source”, as it is called in the agent’s language. This means that Russian intelligence believes the Norwegian is so important that they want to use him in one way or another. It could be getting him to deliver information or documents that could harm Norway’s security at a critical time. That is why PST has decided. They intervene. Interrupts relationships – I don’t want to go into too much detail on what we did in this particular case, but typically what we can do is we can contact the Russian intelligence officer. We tell him, because it is usually a he, that we are familiar with what he is doing, and that the operation has been compromised, exposed, says PST leader Haugland. She says that PST can also contact the Norwegian source. – We tell him or her that we see what is going on, and try to persuade the person concerned to break off the relationship. Haugland says that it is quite common for PST to step in and interrupt a relationship before anything criminal has been committed. Inger Haugland in PST: – We saw that the relationship could damage Norway’s security in the long term Photo: Tom Balgaard – I would think that we do it far more often than we pursue it in a criminal court. – Why did you intervene in this particular case? – We saw a possibility that this relationship could eventually mean that information was handed over that could harm Norway’s security, says Haugland. When asked what has happened to Eduart Pilka, she replies: – Without commenting on this case concretely, we see that when we contact an intelligence officer and tell him that we know what he does, what job he has, then in many cases the activity of this officer will cease and wind down. – And that he is going abroad? – It can be the consequences in some cases, answers Inger Haugland. The Russian embassy: – Usual work news has also contacted the Russian embassy to get a comment related to the agents news names. Press spokesman Timur Chekanov, however, denies that they have done anything wrong, and points out that they have carried out normal diplomatic work. news has not succeeded in making contact with the Russian intelligence officer. Nordic cooperation The disclosure in this case has come to light in the work on the Brennpunkt series “The Shadow War”, which is a collaborative project between the Nordic broadcasters news, DR, SVT and Yle about Russian intelligence activities in our countries. On Thursday, news published the identities of four confirmed Russian intelligence officers in Norway. news is tracking where the situation took place. Since the incident, a tree has appeared. The light matches the picture PST gave to news. The tree also confirms that the incident took place here. Therefore, we identify Intelligence agents under the protection of diplomacy is a matter of great societal importance. It contributes to eroding the role of diplomacy in a world situation that is becoming increasingly tense, and that makes Norway more vulnerable. The persons news chooses to identify here are employed at the Russian embassy today, and according to our sources have connections to the Russian military intelligence service GRU and conduct unwanted or illegal intelligence activities in Norway.
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Here, a Russian agent is caught red-handed in Norway – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
