Following a meeting of the House special committee to oversee the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS), SIS head Pavol Gašpar neither confirmed nor ruled out that agents of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency were operating from Slovakia, as reported by the German media.
According to him, all intelligence information from the secret service is classified. Committee vice-chairman Peter Šuca (Smer-SD) cast doubt on the German media reports, stating that the SIS chief had provided the committee with sufficient information regarding a planned attack in the village of Haniska near Presov. The opposition disagreed with this and accused the coalition of refusing to communicate Russian threats.
According to Gašpar, it cannot be ruled out that Slovakia could face further attacks, such as the one planned in Haniska. "In cooperation with other security agencies, we've essentially drawn up a list of critical sites where heightened security measures have been put in place. We've established communication with these entities and are endeavouring to take as many preventive measures as possible so that we can avert such attacks in the future," he said, noting that there are dozens of such sites, and that they are said to be linked to the arms industry. According to Gašpar, the service doesn't require reform and is operating effectively in cooperation with other agencies.
Šuca believes that Gašpar provided sufficient information at the committee meeting. He also questioned reports by German journalists that GRU operatives were allegedly operating from Slovakia. "The head of the federal intelligence service didn't say that [...] It wasn't intelligence sources or intelligence officers who said that; it was a newspaper editor," stated Šuca. The German journalists cited intelligence reports in support of their findings.
MP Maria Kolikova (SaS) believes that the head of the intelligence service didn't provide sufficient information at the meeting. "In my view, what we learnt at the committee meeting was essentially the same as what the director told the media. So I must admit that, at this point, I cannot quite distinguish what scope the supervisory committee is giving its members, given that the director said the same thing to the public," she stated, adding that the coalition doesn't want to address the threats from Russia and will use the issue of war in its election campaign. She believes that SIS needs reform.
Two Bulgarians detained after an arson attack in Munich on 3 September were part of a group linked to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency that was operating from Slovakia, according to a report by German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing sources in the country's security services. Investigators said that the same group had planned an arson attack on a Skyeton plant near Prešov, which produces reconnaissance drones for Ukraine, but the plot was disrupted.
Source: TASR
