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Spain Investigates Russian Links to Catalan Separatists

Graham Keeley

   MADRID - Russian agents offered military aid to Catalan separatists at
   the height of their failed bid to break away from Spain in 2017,
   according to a judicial investigation in Spain.

   These are the extraordinary allegations at the heart of an
   investigation launched by a judge in Barcelona who is probing alleged
   links between the Catalan independence movement and a Russian
   misinformation campaign designed to destabilize Europe.

   Police arrested 21 suspects in Barcelona on Wednesday on the orders of
   Judge Joaquin Aguirre, including three men who were close to the former
   Catalan President Carles Puigdemont who fled Spain shortly after the
   failed declaration of independence three years ago.

   In one recording presented in court documents, one of those detained by
   police allegedly mentions an offer by Russian agents to provide
   Puigdemont with 10,000 troops to help in a theoretical armed conflict
   with Spanish forces. The offer never materialized.

   Fake news offensive

   "Russian interference as a geopolitical strategy was a fact during the
   fall of 2017 when (the Russians) spread fake news and disinformation,"
   Judge Aguirre said in a ruling, citing online items backing the Catalan
   separatists spread by Russian news platforms.

   The Spanish government had accused Russia in 2017 of meddling in the
   Catalan conflict, a charge that Russian officials denied at the time.
   In what appeared to be an ironic repost to the court allegations, the
   Russian Embassy in Madrid tweeted: "It is necessary to add two zeros to
   the number of soldiers and the most shocking thing about this
   conspiracy: the troops should be transported by Mosca and Chato,
   airplanes assembled in Catalonia during the (Spanish) Civil War and
   hidden in a safe place in the Catalan Sierra until they receive the
   order to act through encrypted publications."

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