The word spy is loaded with connotations.
It evokes furtive exchanges of information at smoky east European bars or isolated, dark truck stops during the Cold War between the West and Russia.
It seems almost incredible to think that here we are in 2024 and the topic of Russian spies is at the forefront of national security concerns right here in Australia.
Kira Korolev, a 40-year-old Russia-born Australian Army private and her now-63-year-old husband Igor Korolev face up to fifteen years imprisonment after the AFP charged them with preparing for an espionage offence.
Police allege the couple used Pte Korolev’s position as an information systems technician to access military material to hand to Kremlin authorities.
The couple have been in Australia for more than 10 years.
And now it can be revealed that, stunningly, Mrs Korolev was secretly employed by a Kremlin-backed war machine powering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
An investigation by The Nightly has obtained internal Russian Government documents spanning two Federal ministries — the first time an Australian media outlet has obtained any internal Russian Government material.
The documents expose Mrs Korolev — whose Australian security clearance permitted her access to top secret Australian intelligence — secretly receiving hundreds of thousands of Russian rubles from a sanctioned military firm serving Russia’s top intelligence agencies while she was employed in the ADF.
Her new Moscow apartment complex — where Australian authorities allege she was preparing for an espionage offence last year — is 375m from Russian military intelligence agency GRU headquarters, Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs documents reveal.
Her presence at the epicentre of Russian military intelligence is such that the mobile phone of a GRU major general who supervises the chief of GRU Department 5 — responsible for masterminding long-term, deep-cover Russian spies known as Russian illegals — has connected to a cell phone tower 55m from Mrs Korolev’s apartment complex more than it has to any other cell phone tower in Russia, telecommunications records reveal.
Mrs Korolev, who Australian authorities allege undertook undeclared travel to Russia last year, would travel throughout Russia to Belarus and the far western city of Saint Petersburg.
Flight records show Mrs Korolev booked on a return flight from Moscow to Istanbul last year — less than four weeks before the secret payments began.
These revelations come after The Nightly reported that the ADF promoted Mrs Korolev as a model soldier in two recruitment videos it erased on the day intelligence agencies arrested her.
The saga follows other recent embarrassments for the ADF, which is battling massive morale and recruitment problems. Again it points to the need for a major overhaul.