From the investigative team: An IT student rotting in prison in Estonia, forgotten by his masters. An officer of the Lithuanian army exploited by an old family friend who turns out to be a foe. A small-time farmer and businessman in a Latvian border town who just loves to take pictures of military installations. Poisoned ex-spies and fake diplomatic expulsions masquerading as common NATO-EU policy. What do all of these threads have in common?
In a five-country series, a team of investigative journalists led by the Baltic Centre of Investigative Journalism Re:Baltica has explored the spying methods Russia is deploying against the NATO allies. In the Baltics, which, being next to Russia, are often used as a testing grounds, the team secured the first exclusive interviews with people convicted for spying for Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. From there the story moved to Hungary, which acts as a logistics base for Russian operations in the Balkans, and the Czech Republic, where the country’s foreign ministry was subject to cyber attacks by Russian and Chinese hackers at the same time.