The Danish security service has detained a Russian citizen on charges of helping the Russian security services.
Danish Radio claims that the Russian woman is central to Russian society in Denmark and has received several awards from the Russian Foreign Ministry for her work on behalf of the Russian-speaking population abroad.
According to the Danish Radio publication, the detained Russian woman, whose name was not given, provides legal services to Russian-speaking residents of Zealand, a Danish province in the east of the country. Since 2017, her foundation has received about 338,000 kroner ($48,500) from a Russian foundation over five years; she herself has received about $7,500.
A number of Western intelligence agencies believe that the legal advice supported by the foundation may be “part of a propaganda mechanism” to create “stories of discrimination against Russian speakers,” the material said.
In early June, an investigation into the work of the fund was released by a number of Western publications. The Der Spiegel piece noted that the fund had paid for the work of a lawyer for alleged FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, sentenced to life for the murder of a Chechen warlord. Latvian member of the European Parliament Tatiana Zhdanok, suspected of working for the FSB, could receive money from Pravfond, The Insider wrote.
In Latvia, the fund paid for lawyers for Russian-speaking activists, Re:Baltica wrote. The materials said that the foundation also supported the spread of Russian propaganda. Key figures in the fund are linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the materials claimed.
The Russian Embassy in Copenhagen has already demanded the immediate release of the Russian woman, and the detention itself regarded as a “brazen provocation of the Danish security services,” said Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin.
