Honeytrapped Irish politician spied for Russia during Brexit saga

Agent recruited to undermine European relations is still in the country’s parliament

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John Mooney

Sunday October 06 2024, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times

Russian intelligence used a “honey­trap” to recruit an Irish politician as an agent for the Kremlin during the Brexit talks.

One of the aims was to undermine relations between Britain, Ireland and the EU. The Irish military and security services identified the agent but, remarkably, they are still at large in the country’s parliament.

Their identity is known to The Sunday Times but for legal reasons we are calling them “Cobalt”. A surveillance operation found they met Sergey Prokopiev, a Russian spy who worked out of the Russian embassy in Dublin between 2019 and 2022. In a meeting outside Dublin, Cobalt, who was under surveillance by the military and the Irish police, the gardai, offered to connect the Russians and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland at a sensitive time in the Brexit talks.

Intelligence sources believe the Kremlin hoped to exploit tensions and undermine relations between the UK, Ireland and the EU. Loyalist paramilitaries were threatening violence over the 2019 and 2020 Brexit deals, which created a customs border in the Irish Sea, to prevent a land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Security chiefs believe that Cobalt, who has received no payments from the Russians, was recruited as part of a honeytrap operation, where an enemy intelligence officer or agent lures the target into compromising sexual encounters.

Several meetings between Cobalt and a female agent were logged. She was monitored entering the state on several occasions for short periods, but no action could be taken as Cobalt was not breaking any law. ‘He allowed himself to be used’

The public figure’s internet history, intercepted during travels abroad, is understood to have played a role in securing “kompromat” against him. According to flight data seen by The Sunday Times, Cobalt has travelled to countries outside the European Union where the Russian intelligence ­services operate freely.

Security sources also believe ego played a significant role in his willingness to co-operate. “They used him but he allowed himself to be used,” one said.

Cobalt was approached by Irish special branch officers and formally warned that he was being targeted by the Russians. His dismissal of those concerns strengthened their suspicions about his activities.

Prokopiev, a colonel in the GRU, Russian military intelligence, worked undercover as a counsellor at the Russian embassy. He was one of four Russian diplomats kicked out of Ireland in 2022 after being identified as undeclared intelligence officers, parts of a wave of 600 expulsions of Russian spies across the West after the invasion of Ukraine.

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Cobalt’s recruitment is the first known infiltration of the Irish parliament by a hostile intelligence service in modern times but follows several efforts to compromise politicians in the UK as part of Russia’s “active measures” to destabilise western society.

Cobalt could not be arrested or charged with espionage because he did not have access to any classified material, therefore could not disclose its contents to a hostile state. The security services believe he was used as an asset: an easily influenced person who could make introductions, disrupt public debate or air the Kremlin’s views when prompted. He remains a person of interest to Garda intelligence and J2, the military intelligence branch of the Irish defence forces.

Mark Galeotti, the Russia expert, said using a politician to discreetly upset sentiments around Brexit and other political issues must have looked like a “fantastic opportunity” for the Russians.

“Wherever there are social fracture lines, some smart, ruthless, imaginative and morally bankrupt Russian intelligence officer is working out how to widen it a little further. Politicians are classic targets for Russian services. They have access, they have careers where they work on committees, and they have large egos. Ego is one of the most reliable ways of recruiting people,” he said.

“Politicians have protection because who is going to go after them without evidence? They are in contact with all sorts of people ranging from senior officials all the way through to paramilitaries. Generally speaking, Russian services would look at anyone with access as a valuable catch.”

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Kevin Riehle, a lecturer at Brunel University in London who previously served in various counterintelligence roles in the United States, said that the honeytrap was ­consistent with Russian active measures. Riehle suspects the Russians who secretly interacted with Cobalt let him know they knew certain things about him.

The Kremlin’s recruitment of an agent within the Irish parliament happened during a period of escalating tensions between Moscow and Dublin. Until this point, Ireland was viewed as a permissive environment for Russia’s intelligence services to operate in the European Union compared with countries such as France and ­Britain. That changed in 2018 when the government­ moved to stop Russia from expanding its embassy after an investigation by The Sunday Times that disclosed the federation was constructing an ­intelligence-gathering base there. The government was forced to introduce emergency legislation to revoke the planning permission.