Dossier Center: There are almost 200 antennas on the roofs of the Russian embassies in Europe, and the exiled "diplomats" served them
We explain how embassy radio intelligence works
Translation:
https://fsb.dossier.center/antenna/
Since the beginning of 2022, about 400 Russian diplomats have been expelled from European countries - this is an absolute record. When there are not enough living scouts, technology takes on special importance. There will be many antennas on the building of any embassy - and this is normal. Diplomats (and intelligence officers with diplomatic passports) need to communicate with their leadership through fast, stable, secure, and host-independent channels. But, according to experts, the number of antennas on the roofs of Russian missions in European countries significantly exceeds the communication needs.
What kind of antennas are these, why strange boxes-containers are installed on the roofs of embassies, how this may be connected with the expulsion of hundreds of representatives of the diplomatic corps, and why the antenna in Brussels can cover half of Europe - is covered in the first part of the ESPIOMATS investigation conducted by the Dossier Center together with Delfi (Estonia), De Tijd (Belgium), Expressen (Sweden), Frontstory (Poland), ICJK (Slovakia), LRT (Lithuania), VSquare (Central Europe).
Rooftop antennas
Classic satellite dishes - parabolic antennas, more complex Cassegrain antennas, directional Yagi-Uda arrays, magnetic loop antennas, and simple vertical pins - such a set can be found in most embassies of the Russian Federation. Each of them has its own range of tasks. It seems that there is no crime, all of them have a completely legal and understandable purpose. The difficulty is that looking at them from the outside, you can almost never tell if this equipment is used for electronic espionage (SIGINT).
Using the well-known simple dish antenna, you can establish a satellite connection and a microwave relay line or amplify the signal of a wireless Internet router. And it can also determine the location of ships, aircraft, and guided missiles as a radar antenna.
Whip antennas are practically universal. However, unlike parabolic, whip, magnetic loop antennas or Yagi-Uda arrays usually cannot provide communication between the embassy and the Russian Foreign Ministry - but they allow you to intercept signals in the host country - from the conversations of local taxi drivers to cellular communications.
Vertical and magnetic loop antennas at the Russian Embassy in the Kingdom of Sweden (Expressen)
Negotiations of Europeans - as on a plate
“Today, a satellite dish is such a classic. This is now the best way for an embassy to receive and send digital data. A private connection to your home country is still much more secure than encrypted communications over the public internet. Therefore, as a rule, at least one antenna is installed in each embassy,” says an expert consulted by De Tijd.
Usually, there are several plates, although theoretically, one is enough. But there are alarmingly many of them at Russian embassies. Based on satellite images, a consortium of journalists counted at least 182 antennas on 39 buildings of Russian representative offices in Europe (and these are only visible "dishes"). The record holder is the Russian Embassy in Belgium, where 17 antennas are installed. At six more offices - in Madrid, Prague, Belgrade, Lisbon, Sofia, and Nicosia - at least 10 devices are visible.
Not all antennas are visible from the outside, so their real number is probably even greater.
“In practice, there are always cases where you use additional dishes because you want to point them each to a different satellite, and of course there is a need for backups. But when you start to notice how many antennas are installed in some [Russian] embassies, I really wonder if they are used for other, specific purposes, too,” the expert says.
One possible use for parabolic antennas is to intercept satellite telephony signals, such as the Thuraya system. A similar antenna, installed on the roof of the embassy in Belgium, can allow listening to communications from almost all of Western Europe.
The Thuraya satellite telephony system is different in that it uses only a few satellites, but each of them covers a large part of the world. Thus, the Thuraya 2 satellite serves all of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. To maximize throughput, signals are distributed over more than 200 regional cells - these are called spot beams. Brussels is just at the intersection of three relatively large hexagonal cells, which theoretically allows you to receive phone calls there from users from the Benelux countries, Switzerland, and large parts of Germany, France, and the UK. Technically, this is quite possible: according to documents released by Edward Snowden in 2016, the United States intercepted conversations using a spy satellite, which was located next to the Thuraya 2 satellite, in 2009.
“We know that such operations to intercept information are nothing new. They have been going on since the beginning of the Cold War. And of course also in Brussels, where many European institutions are located. We should not be naive, this is happening today,” Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborn told De Tijd. The minister noted that "the amount of equipment on the roofs of the Russian embassy is significant" and linked this to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union in Brussels.
Less is not worse
Less powerful antennas also find use in electronic intelligence. As an expert interviewed by Frontstory explained, they can also be used in SIGINT: “Because of the received frequencies, they are more suitable for local signals. They are used, for example, by taxi companies to receive communications between pilots and an airport control tower and to receive - now encrypted - police radio signals. Embassies can also use them to communicate with staff outside the embassy premises via their own encrypted radio.”
Speaking to Frontstory, the former head of the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW), General Piotr Pytel, drew attention to small antennas around a large container on the roof of a building in Warsaw where Russian diplomats live:
“At first glance, it looks like advanced technical intelligence posts that are used to intercept electromagnetic radiation - for example, radio communications from local intelligence agencies, mobile conversations, and so on. Russians use such equipment all over the world, especially where the activity of special services is high, mainly to secure their special operations. There are a lot of such posts [in the video shown by journalists]. This may be indicative of active intelligence activities [in Warsaw] at that time.”
What can be seen
Similar containers of various shapes and sizes are visible on the roofs of a significant part of Russian embassies. Their contents are likely to be much more interesting than open antennas. Mystery boxes were found on the roofs of diplomatic missions in Poland, Sweden, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Portugal. In Madrid, the container occupies almost the entire roof of the embassy.
A former intelligence official from a Central European country, speaking to foreign journalists, suggests that the equipment in the containers may well be able to intercept cell phone communications: “In my country, services used to fly by helicopter over the embassy to check what was missing and what was new on the roof. This container looks like a barn. Our agency had information - possibly from international partners - that equipment was installed there that could intercept and record telephone conversations in the capital. Not only information from mobile phones but also the conversations themselves. The Russians already had this technology 10 years ago; since then it has become more advanced.” According to Frontstory experts and sources, from the roof of the embassy building in Warsaw, Russian services can listen in within a radius of up to 30 kilometers. An interlocutor connected with the Central European intelligence services adds that by using antennas, you can also access the file systems of phones.
The embassies monitor not only the secret services and politicians of other countries but also the protests against the Kremlin's policies.
“When there are rallies nearby, Russians can monitor phone traffic and collect data and identifiers, such as IMEI numbers of nearby mobile phones,” a former Hungarian counterintelligence official told Frontstory.
According to him, at least in Hungary, the Russians are using this technology to its full potential. By comparing intercepts of electronic communications with embassy security cameras, they monitor protests and gather information on local critics and Ukrainian groups.
The embassy has been using this tactic for a long time. Six years ago, when a small protest called “Stop Moscow!” took place in front of the embassy on Baiza Street, a national security expert anonymously warned the protesters in a commentary for a news site about surveillance being conducted from the Russian embassy.
“In fact, you can’t do anything, this is Russian territory. The maximum is to turn off or leave the phone at home if you see that the roof of the embassy looks like Baikonur, ”the expert said then.
Listening to you...
As the Central European expert says, the electronic intelligence equipment in Russian diplomatic missions falls under the responsibility of the FSB. Chekists maintain the equipment, even if a specific task is carried out in the interests of the SVR or the GRU. The FSB technical staff, he said, also supports purely intelligence operations. For example, the FSB monitors radioactivity around its embassy or other important sites in order to identify the work of someone else's counterintelligence - often local intelligence services keep in touch via walkie-talkies or cell phones. If radio traffic increases around the embassy, the FSB may advise the GRU or the SVR to curtail the intelligence operation so as not to compromise their employees.
“In the capital of my country in the 2010s, they could conduct radio reconnaissance within a radius of 25–30 kilometers, as well as intercept telephone conversations. This sometimes makes counterintelligence operations impossible. The officers had to frequently change their mobile phones, because if any of these numbers were identified and were in the vicinity of the embassy, then the Russians knew for sure that they were being watched. Therefore, mobile phones had to either be turned off, or use the number only for one transaction, or use several numbers during one transaction, ”says the source.
Send equipment to idle
It is difficult to determine how effective Russian radio intelligence is today under a diplomatic roof. The equipment is in place, but most of the personnel who should service it are already in Russia. And not by choice. The unprecedented scale of the expulsions of Russian diplomats is caused, among other things, by the desire to reduce the activity of electronic and radio intelligence.
As Frontstory journalists found out, 20 of the 45 diplomats expelled from Warsaw in 2022 were technical personnel, including those who serviced tracking and interception equipment (there is no official confirmation of this data).
Belgian Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne in a commentary to De Tijd, explicitly states that by expelling 21 employees of the Russian embassy, the Belgians "weakened the information position of the Russian special services and disrupted possible signal intelligence operations." On the recommendation of the Belgian security service VSSE, "quite a number of technical specialists" were included in the list of persona non grata. “Such profiles are crucial in technical intelligence operations such as hacking and data interception,” the minister stressed.
There are indeed many employees with such expertise among persona non grata. In the summer of 2022, the Dossier Center found out that at least five expelled employees of the Russian embassy in Belgium had an engineering education in the field of computer technology or radio communications and served in the relevant units of Russian intelligence.
According to the Dossier, the diplomats who left Sweden in 2022 also had ties to SIGINT. Diplomat Vitaly Stanevka turned out to be registered at the address of the GRU headquarters. Pavel Mavrin graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics. Another diplomat, Mikhail Dubrovsky, lists the military unit of the SVR as his registration address, and his parents worked for companies linked to Roscosmos. His brother indicates on social networks that he graduated from the Institute of Cryptography of Communications and Informatics of the FSB. Expelled a year earlier, Dmitry Volkov studied at the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics. According to Expressen sources, he was sent to Russia precisely because of his technical knowledge.
Another example is attaché Nikita Petrov, who was expelled from Estonia in March 2022. The Dossier Center established that he studied communication and switching systems at the Ryazan Military School and was registered in Vatutinki, near Moscow, not far from the headquarters of the 107th center of the GRU special service - this is the command of individual points of radio intelligence of space objects. His father also served in the military units of the GRU.
Aleksander Toots, deputy head of the Estonian Internal Security Service (KAPO), claims that thanks to the work of the KAPO, at least since 2008, "Russian legal residency has been suppressed." However, Estonia borders Russia, so the SIGINT problem is not solved by expelling diplomats. Toots claims that Russia conducts radio reconnaissance from its territory - with the help of tracking stations in Krasnoye Selo in the Leningrad region and in the village of Verbnoye in the Kaliningrad region. Even more information is collected using air-based tracking stations. According to the deputy head of the KAPO, flights at an altitude of 3-5 kilometers allow you to electronically "view" almost the entire territory of Estonia.
The radio intelligence station in Verbnoye also monitors the territory of Lithuania. The Baltic nation is monitored by fixed and mobile reconnaissance platforms in the Kaliningrad region and the Russian mainland, as well as in Russian diplomatic missions in Lithuania. In addition, radio reconnaissance in the Baltic Sea is carried out using reconnaissance ships, reconnaissance aircraft, and ground reconnaissance means.
Reconnaissance stations are also located in Belarus. Belarusian units receive equipment from Russia and constantly exchange intelligence with Russian counterparts. Moreover, Belarusian radio intelligence can work on the instructions of the Russian special services, according to the Department of State Security of the Republic of Lithuania.
“I can’t say anything specific about this, but Russia is preparing for the NATO summit in Vilnius [to be held on July 11-12, 2023], this is a fact,” a former Lithuanian military counterintelligence officer tells foreign journalists. The complex of the Russian embassy in Vilnius is considered the largest in the Baltic States. For years, it has been the main training ground for training intelligence officers against larger Western countries, the expert notes. In Lithuania itself, there is no visible equipment on the roofs of the embassy, but, in his opinion, this does not mean anything:
“Pay attention to the slope of the roof. Equipment is visible on flat roofs, a flat roof does not allow equipment to be hidden underneath. The roof of the Russian Embassy in Lithuania is pitched. You can hide sensitive SIGINT equipment under such a roof.”
In addition to stationary radars in embassies and in border areas, two types of Russian reconnaissance ships operate in the Baltic Sea - Alpinist and Cherry.
Sweden expelled only three Russian diplomats in 2022. The head of the Swedish counterintelligence department SAPO, Daniel Stenling, in a conversation with Expressen, notes that Russia has “a fairly large part of the diplomatic missions are precisely intelligence officers,” including the FSB, the SVR, and the GRU. When asked about the activity of Russian radio intelligence in Sweden, Stanling chose not to answer, citing the interests of his service: “I don’t want to go into details, because then we would kind of reveal what we know, and thereby complicate our work.”
Rooftop dishes, ships in the Baltic Sea, and spy stations near Russia's borders are just the most visible nodes of Russia's radio intelligence network. But the equipment is located not only on diplomatic buildings, but also in private apartments, in inconspicuous minibusses, cars, and even in agents' backpacks. Modern technology allows you to collect data discreetly, and antennas on rooftops are far from the only way to listen to a phone or send encrypted data. Nevertheless, embassies have important advantages: intercepting signals from diplomatic territory is officially prohibited and the territory of diplomatic missions is much safer for espionage operations than a foreign country. Therefore, they remain important bases for radio intelligence, communications, and general activities of special services.
Could the mass expulsion of diplomats affect the capabilities of Russian intelligence in Europe, read in the continuation of the ESPIOMATS investigation.