“Russia Has Supported Catalonian Separatism To Stir Up the Hornet’s Nest”: An Interview With David Alandete

An expert on Eastern Europe looks at Russian meddling in Spain's internal affairs as a means of undermining the West and furthering its own imperialistic ends.

From The European Conservative

By Álvaro Peñas

In Russia, the state does not fight organised crime. Instead part of the state controls organised crime.

David Alandete holds a degree in audiovisual communication and masters’ degrees in journalism from the El País School of Journalism and in international relations from George Washington University. He is currently White House correspondent for the ABC newspaper. Previously, he was deputy editor of El País and he worked as a correspondent in the Middle East and the United States. He has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Egypt, and he has reported from Mexico and Brazil. In 2019, he was awarded the Eisenhower Prize for freedom of expression, for his investigations into Russian influence in Catalonia.

What is the current progress of the judicial investigation into Russian involvement in the Catalan pro-independence process?

There is a clear effort on the part of the executive to prevent justice from doing its job, but even so, there have been three cases that have tried to clarify what has happened. The first case is that of the alleged crimes of terrorism that Judge García Castellón was investigating, which charged Carles Puigdemont and others with terrorism for the organisation of the “Democratic Tsunami” [this case has been shelved due to a miscarriage of justice]. The second, which investigated the presence of Russian spies who were identified in Catalonia in 2017, was dismissed, although there is information about their presence. And the last one, which is the most important, is that of Judge Aguirre in Barcelona’s examining magistrate’s court number 1.

This last case comes up because, in an investigation into embezzlement, a notebook was found in which there were indications of a possible collaboration between certain pro-independence sectors and people in Russia. Víctor Terradellas, and others, were hired by then-president Artur Más to manage the international relations of Convergencia. They continue to carry out these functions for Puigdemont. They made several trips to Russia and received people coming from Russia in Catalonia. In the book, I write that Puigdemont was told, for example, that he is “an emissary of Putin.” They spoke in those terms, which is very striking.

Did these contacts continue after Terradellas’ arrest?

When Terradellas was arrested in 2018, and the notebook was discovered, the contacts were taken over by another team. In other words, we moved from one president to another, and from one team to another, but the contacts and communications with Russia were maintained. Judge Aguirre is handling this case with a lot of things going against him, especially after the change of government. Since then, the prosecutor’s office has stopped collaborating, and the head of the judicial police in Catalonia—Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baena, who had been investigating 1 October and the contacts with Russia—has been reassigned. This has hindered the investigation.

Following the news that the provincial court did not give Judge Aguirre any more investigative time, Kremlin supporters in Spain have claimed that the whole case was a lie.

The Provincial Court asked the judge to finish the investigation of the case, yes, because it has been going on for a long time. In turn, the judge asked the National Court for information on the case of the presence of spies; they informed him that the case is closed. This has been presented by some media close to the government as the case being closed, but it is not true. I believe that, in a short time, we will see the judge making a reasoned statement and asking for Puigdemont to be charged. If embezzlement does not apply in the amnesty, the crime of treason will not apply either.

Isn’t the case of Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka, who worked for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), proof of Moscow’s interest in separatism in Spain?

I started writing about this issue when I was working for El País. In 2019, I published a book, Fake News, in which I dedicated a chapter to this MEP. Zdanoka represented the Russian Union in Latvia, which was against Latvian independence and the use of the Latvian language in favour of Russian. At the same time, she was in favour of Basque and Catalan independence. It does not make much sense. This year, it was discovered that she has been in the service of the FSB for 20 years, as the investigation in Latvia and the European Parliament revealed. Zdanoka’s relationship with Catalan separatism predates 2017, and there are elements that indicate that she, like other figures in Russia’s orbit, such as Assange and Snowden, have supported separatism in order to stir up the hornet’s nest in the European Union.

There has been talk of soldiers, cryptocurrencies, reconnaissance, and more. How would Russian support materialise?

The big question is, “what is Russia?” There are a number of individuals here who are linked to the Kremlin and who offer different things. The soldiers were discussed at a meeting in which an individual identified by Italian intelligence as having links to the FSB and Russian power, Nikolai Sadovnikov, was present. In a meeting with Puigdemont, Sadovnikov presented an offer of cryptocurrencies, 10,000 soldiers, payment of the Catalan debt, etc. On the other hand, the lawyer Gonzalo Boyé, and Josep Lluís Alay, Puigdemont’s chief of staff, are in contact with Yevgeny Primakov, Jr., who is a very important man in Russia. In the messages intercepted by the Guardia Civil, they themselves said that he has more power than the Russian foreign minister and, in fact, has a position of trust granted by Putin. What separatists wants from Russia, and what the Russians are offering for the future, is recognition of independence, because international recognition is a key factor for the separatist process. For Russia, recognising the independence process would give it a satellite within the EU, in a territory where there is also a strong presence of Russian organised crime.

You mentioned Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boyé, a character with a rather dark past. What role does he play in this whole affair?

Boyé became a lawyer in prison, while serving a sentence for the kidnapping of the businessman Emiliano Revilla (who had been kidnapped for 8 months by the terrorist group ETA). He has worked with controversial clients, such as the drug trafficker Sito Miñanco. According to the judge, Boyé does much more than represent Puigdemont; he is directly involved in contacts with Russia. In the judge’s order, there is also a very striking part about Boyé and Alay’s conversations with two high-ranking members of Russian organised crime, Zajar Kalashov and Vasili Khristoforov—two ‘thieves of the law,’ as the Russian mafia bosses are called. According to press reports, the contacts were to obtain funds for the defence of independence and to maintain the lifestyle of the fugitive Puigdemont. Boyé—who has just denounced both me and Judge Aguirre—has been summoned to testify; he has a crucial role in these contacts.

On what is Boyé basing his accusation?

In my case, he accuses me of coordinating with the judge; and that, in my book, there are paragraphs of the court order published before it was issued, which is absolutely false. Neither Boyé nor Puigdemont understand journalistic work, and for them any independent information about their contacts with Russia is a conspiracy between the judiciary and journalism. A journalist has his sources and, in the exercise of his free right to information, must cite those sources in his investigations. Boyé has called the book a libel, so it seems to have annoyed him. I think he doesn’t like it because of the chronology at the end of the book, which is a succession of undeniable facts.

To what facts are you referring?

The chronology begins in 2006, when Litvinenko prepared to talk to the prosecutor José Grinda to tell him, as the prosecutor admitted, that some Russian mafia businesses in Spain involved people of great power in Russia, even some who are close to Putin. But before Litvinenko could do so, he was poisoned to death. This was the beginning of Russia’s attention to Spain, where there was already a large Russian organised crime presence in Catalonia, Valencia, and the east coast of Andalusia. In a meeting with the Americans, reported in a Wikileaks cable, prosecutor Grinda said he was convinced that Russia is a state that has its own organised crime. It is not that the state fights organised crime, it is that part of the state controls organised crime. When Russia needs to eliminate someone, as in the case of the Russian pilot who had defected and was living in Alicante, the job is entrusted to organised crime.

Before the independence process, there are several very striking events. For example, Artur Más appointed Xavier Crespo, mayor of Lloret de Mar, as head of the Mossos. Crespo did not take up his post because, according to investigations presented to the U.S. Senate, he had contacts with Russian organised crime. He was later convicted for that reason. He was going to be the head of the Mossos. Let’s think about how he would have acted during the independence process.

Do you know if there have been any further contacts?

There is a clear division in the pro-independence movement on this issue. I think ERC was horrified by Puigdemont’s contacts, and now the separatists are trying to distance themselves from all this or play it down. The idea, for Puigdemont and his supporters, was to achieve a recognition that he was not going to get in the EU or the United States. I understand that there have been no more contacts, but there were contacts until 2020.

Why is it so difficult in Spain to accept the existence of a Russian plot?

Everything has changed a lot since the invasion of Ukraine. Before, nobody believed in Russian interference because the Soviet Union no longer existed, but now we have seen an authoritarian regime in Russia trying to annex European territory with a clear irredentism, and this has created more awareness. It is true that, outside of Spain, this has been better recognised—whether in the European Parliament, the U.S. Senate, or NATO, which have denounced Russian interference in Spain. The problem is that, in Spain at the moment, there is no political will in the government to prevent it from happening again. In fact, many crimes have been amnestied, and it seems that the aim is to ensure that the crime of treason does not have the consequences it has in other countries.

Pictured: David Alandete