The National Intelligence Center of the Ministry of Defense of Spain is undergoing the biggest reorganization in the last 20 years. This is necessary to counter the hostile hybrid strategy of the Russian Federation, which concerns Spain.
This is reported by Deutsche Welle.
It is planned to create so-called mission centers - units that will specialize in combating Russian espionage, hostile propaganda and disinformation.
Also, these centers must resist cyberattacks and attempts to circumvent EU sanctions imposed on the export of military goods to the Russian Federation.
The Intelligence Center believes that Russia has recently significantly increased its intelligence and other hostile activities in Spain, which is causing legitimate concern. DW writes that Russia uses classic espionage and other forms of state destabilization. We are talking about cyber attacks on state institutions, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2022, Spain's public authorities suffered a total of 254,934 such attacks.
Also, attempts to supply goods and technologies for the defense industry from Spain to Russia, bypassing EU sanctions, do not stop. Thus, in the course of the operation of the special services under the code name Chelico, the activities of a company that settled in the city of Irún in the north of Spain were recently revealed. Citizens of Russia and Ukraine worked in it, allegedly trying to arrange the supply of components for the production of military aircraft cabins to the Russian Federation.
We will remind that the Minister of Defense of Spain, Margarita Robles, will announce new military aid to Ukraine on Friday, April 21. Among other things, the delivery of air and naval defense equipment is expected.
Six Leopard 2 tanks, which Spain promised to transfer to Ukraine, arrived at the port of Santander in the northern part of the country.
In Spain, almost 200 Ukrainian soldiers completed their training at the Toledo Infantry Academy.