Australia arrests couple accused of spying for Russia

Australian police said on Friday (12) that they had arrested a former soldier and her husband, both of Russian origin and Australian citizens, for allegedly obtaining “sensitive” military material with the intention of sharing it with Russian authorities.

The accused are a 40-year-old woman, who became an Australian citizen in 2016 and was a soldier in the Australian Army, and her 62-year-old self-employed husband who became an Australian citizen in 2020, according to a statement from the Australian Federal Police, the Daily Mail reported.

The statement said that the two, who arrived in Australia more than a decade ago, were arrested on Thursday (11) in a house in the city of Brisbane, in the north-east of the country.

The woman, who worked for several years as an information systems technician and had a security clearance from the army, was accused, along with her husband, of preparing an espionage operation.

This is the first espionage charge in Australia since the passage of the Foreign Interference Act in 2018, and carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

At a news conference in the Australian capital, Canberra, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said the alleged Russian spying operation had been “deactivated,” meaning it no longer posed a significant risk to national security.

“Our Five Eyes partners and the Australian government can be assured that strong links with foreign counterintelligence agencies will enable us to continue to identify and stop foreign espionage and interference activities.”

Australian authorities allege the woman, who will appear in a Brisbane court later on Friday alongside her husband, made “undisclosed” trips to Russia with and without him in 2023, during a long period when she was on leave in the army.

According to the investigation, the former soldier asked her husband to access her official work account and directed him to access “specific” and “sensitive” military information that he sent directly to her private email account while she was on duty in Russia with the intention of supplying it to Moscow, according to the Federal Police statement.

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