From Reuters:  Three Czech generals, including a presidential staff member and a NATO representative, were forced to leave the army in 2009 after a Russian spy’s contact with their offices, a Czech newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Czech military and counter-intelligence agents have increasingly highlighted Russian agents’ presence in the central European NATO and European Union member, and this has been the biggest reported case of infiltration into the military.

Citing an unnamed source, daily Mlada Fronta Dnes said the Russian agent, a Czech state-employed psychologist known as Robert R., befriended a female army major, who had also studied psychology and worked successively as head of staff for the three army generals.

The generals, respectively, worked as head of President Vaclav Klaus’s Military Office, the Czechs’ NATO representative in Europe, and a deputy general for the Chief of Staff.

The newspaper said it was not clear whether the army major worked for the Russian agent knowingly, nor what information was passed on and if it posed a security threat. Military intelligence agents followed the two for at least five years.

From Russia Today:  The female officer, who is dubbed “Czech Mata Hari” in the report, headed the secretariats of three generals and delivered sensitive information to the Russian agent.

Czech intelligence has been investigating Robert R., a Czech citizen with a Russian parent, for five years, the newspaper reports. The spy was interested in a number of secrets, including the now-scrapped project of American anti-missile system radar, which the Eastern European country wanted to host, co-operation with NATO and a project for a nuclear power plant.

Apparently, the Russian agent learned about his exposure, since he managed to escape the Czech Republic. His informant has been fired from the military, and her current whereabouts are not known.

Meanwhile, three Czech generals have also been fired following the spy scandal, including head of the Presidential Military Secretariat Frantisek Hrabal, the country’s representative in NATO’s High Command Josef Sedlak, and deputy head of the General Staff Josef Proks.  (graphic: Russia Today)

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