France, nest of Russian spies? For nearly a century, Moscow secret service are active in France. To their credit, many recruits in the highest spheres of the State, most of whom will never be discovered during their lifetime. In many cases, doubt is permitted. Back in three episodes on three eras and three emblematic cases, with new elements.
EPISODE 1 – Pierre Cot, minister and “agent of influence”?
EPISODE 2 – Journalist Paul-Marie de La Gorce, KGB spy? Secret Service suspicions
2023 summer series headband
© / The Express
Lieutenant-Colonel LL was the ideal target for Putin’s spies. One of his distant ancestors is a legend of the Russian Empire, a French royalist who became a general in the Tsar’s army out of defiance of the French Revolution. One of the five first names of the French soldier, born in 1967 and specializing in artillery, also corresponds to that of this adventurous ancestor. He himself is a Russophile, graduated in Slavic and Russian at Paris-Sorbonne in 1988; from 2014 to 2016, he practiced this language as a defense attaché in Astana, Kazakhstan, where he was notably responsible for collecting military intelligence. The officer was then sufficiently well rated by his hierarchy to be knighted in the Order of Merit in November 2016.
At the start of the case that will lead him to prison, he was seconded to NATO at the Lago Patria base, near Naples, in Italy, where the operations carried out in southern Europe were planned, in Libya or the Middle East. He has access to confidential documents.
“We know who you are”
On September 28, 2019, in the middle of the afternoon, LL arrived at the station of Stresa, a small seaside resort on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Yuri A., whom the Italian security services identify as a Russian military intelligence agent (GRU), under diplomatic cover, is already there. About thirty minutes later, he approaches the Frenchman along the quays. The lieutenant-colonel denies that they had an appointment, the spy would have accosted him and would have convinced him, in a few words, to go for a drink. Until today, the genesis of this meeting, which tends to show that Iouri A. knew the timetable of the NATO official, remains unknown to the investigators.
The Italian intelligence agents do not lose a crumb: they have been on the trail of the Russian for several days. For two and a half hours, the two men chat on the terrace of a café, in English, then in Russian, LL will describe. They are photographed watching a computer screen. After their interview, Iouri A. accompanies the French soldier to the station. Snapshots immortalize this early evening stroll.
The Italians open an investigation, entrusted to the anti-terrorist division of the “carabineri”. They warn their French counterparts, and, in the greatest secrecy, the lieutenant-colonel is wiretapped, including in his car. His computer equipment is monitored, that of his wife and daughter as well. The investigation is entrusted to the joint services of the Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM) and the Defense Intelligence and Security Directorate (DRSD). Many trips by LL alone, to Strasbourg or Switzerland, when he is not mandated by NATO, intrigue the counter-spies. But they have no tangible element suggesting a compromise.
Lunch at the monastery
On June 20, LL goes to the Sarthe, to the Saint-Silouane monastery, where he has an appointment with an Orthodox priest for lunch. Because it suspects that documents have been handed over to this ecclesiastic, suspected of being a clandestine Russian agent, the Ministry of the Armed Forces sends, on July 22, 2020, a report to the Paris public prosecutor, under article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: any official who becomes aware of an offense or a crime is required to report it. The police officers of the DGSI are mandated by the Paris prosecutor’s office. On August 17, 2020, the soldier was arrested, remanded in custody and indicted, from August 21, for intelligence with a foreign power. This crime is punishable by a trial at the assizes and thirty years in prison. He has already been discharged from the army.
To the investigators, LL first pleads the chance meeting, a conversation in English, then he quickly admits having conversed in Russian with an individual who ended up revealing his intentions. “We know you, we know who you are, we know where you work, we would like you to send us […] things that affect Russia,” the GRU officer allegedly asked, according to LL’s account before the investigating judge in January 2021. The lieutenant-colonel claims to have refused to cooperate with his interlocutor. The soldier never mentioned this meeting to one of his superiors.The lieutenant-colonel, on the other hand, requested two acquaintances from the Directorate of Intelligence and Defense Security (DRSD), the secret service specializing in the fight against military compromise. He tried to reach an agent he knew on the phone, while sending an email to another, but he did not mention his “Russian case”.
Failed from War School
Investigators are convinced that LL’s particular background led him to betray. This Catholic, father of five children, does not have the typical profile of an army soldier. He is a literary man, a former student of a hypokhâgne-khâgne preparatory class. He had an initially ultra-promising career, under the orders of illustrious generals, such as General Puga, former chief of staff of the presidents of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. Then at the end of the 2000s, he experienced disillusionment. He failed the school of war, compulsory sesame to become general. With a very bad mark in Russian, moreover. Wouldn’t he have retained resentment towards France, question the investigators? His experience in Kazakhstan, moreover, went pretty badly. LL complained about his relationship with his supervisor.
Contacted, Antoine Beauquier, LL’s lawyer, does not wish to speak except to affirm that “the instruction demonstrates that (his) client never delivered any information to a power foreign”. No evidence of prior or subsequent contact with the GRU was actually found in LL’s environment, nor any handover of documents, as evidenced by a declassified note from the DRSD dated June 10, 2020: “A compromise classified information has not been proven.” No proof either of an allegiance to Russia, one of the only elements directly traceable to the Russian army being a GRU crest found in his belongings at his parents’ house, among a collection of medals of nearly a hundred pieces.
The lieutenant-colonel had all the same at home a handful of documents classified as defense secret, in particular writings from the Center for planning and conduct of operations, attached to the general staff, on the French rail system in the event of war. The National Defense Secret Commission also refused to declassify a document seized from LL, arguing that such a declassification would cause “serious harm” to the interests of the nation. Three USB keys and a phone provided by the Russian spy were also seized. The phone was turned on by the French soldier, but the equipment was never used, apart from a photo of the interior of his accommodation, according to the experts.