Russia hits Dutch over expulsion of ‘specialists’

FOUR Russians expelled by the Netherlands were on a “routine visit,” Moscow said yesterday, insisting that the Dutch intelligence operation had failed to provide proof of any hacking plot.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the expulsion of four alleged military intelligence agents from the Netherlands in April had been a “misunderstanding.”

“There was nothing secret about the trip by our specialists to the Netherlands, it was a routine trip,” Lavrov told reporters. “They didn’t hide when they checked into the hotel, or when they came to the airport, or when they went to our embassy.”

“They were detained without explanation... and asked to leave.” The Netherlands had not issued any diplomatic protest over the incident, he added.

The Netherlands said Thursday it had expelled four GRU military intelligence agents in April for plotting a cyber attack on the world’s chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague.

The men entered the country on Russian diplomatic passports on April 10 and were caught on April 13 with a car full of electronic equipment in the Marriott Hotel next to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Their passports and other details, including a taxi receipt for a trip to a Moscow airport from a street containing a branch of the military intelligence agency, were shown to the Dutch media.

Asked by reporters whether the Kremlin consider this evidence, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no” and refused to further discuss “these topics” through the media.

Lavrov confirmed his office would summon the Dutch ambassador over the issue yesterday.