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Russia Accuses Western Journalists of Espionage After EU Summit Mix-Up

Patrick Mascart / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has accused Western journalists of espionage after two Russian journalists reportedly raised eyebrows by attending a EU summit last week. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry-run Zvezda television channel said that two of its “young and beautiful journalists” were spied on at the latest EU summit in Brussels last week. After discovering the two journalists in attendance at the summit, several European correspondents expressed their alarm in posts on Twitter over Russian attempts to “spy on us.”

“Russian defence personnel operating seemingly unchecked at the heart of EU decision-making. This is not a drill,” another summit attendee wrote. 

Following the mix-up, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged that western journalists had been “caught red-handed” while “taking samples in places linked to certain specialized production” in an interview with Zvezda released on Thursday. 

“So far we’re still acting delicately, we’re not publishing this information. But we could and then it’ll be clear who is whose spy,” Zakharova said in an excerpt of the interview scheduled to air later in the day. 

In Western countries, she said, Russian journalists face “name-calling, boorishness, rudeness.”

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