Greek officials arrested a man in the port city of Alexandroupolis who was reportedly recruited by Russian military intelligence through a Georgian national residing in Lithuania.
The man was allegedly taking photographs of supply convoys in the strategically important Greek port for Russia’s GRU.
According to police and media reports, the suspect, a 59-year-old Greek national of Georgian origin, was arrested in Alexandroupolis, in the north-east of the country, on Tuesday and appeared before an investigating judge on Friday.
The man “confessed to photographing and filming military footage, acting for the benefit of another person”, according to a police statement released on Tuesday. It said the suspect sent the footage to the other person via an encrypted app.
Earlier this week, a police source told the AFP news agency that a man claiming to be a house painter was monitoring military convoys heading to Ukraine, according to footage found on his mobile phone.
The source added that the suspect, who had served in the Russian army in his youth, had been recruited through an intermediary into the Russian military intelligence service GRU.
Greek media reported that the intermediary was a resident of Lithuania, a Georgian national with links to organised crime.
The State Security Department, Lithuania’s intelligence agecy, did not comment further on the situation.
“We do not have any publicly available information on this matter,” the department told BNS on Friday.
Alexandroupolis is an important gateway for the American army to ship supplies to Europe under a mutual defence pact.
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