The investigation by @maxcoccia in Il Riformista is the kind of work that should have been done at scale across Europe a decade ago. It names embassy staff in Rome, traces their biographies and movements, and maps a network that runs from propaganda through recruitment to information collection, with possible links to military and security apparatuses.
A Different Kind of Espionage
What the probe describes is espionage of a different kind: the modern Moscovian model of diplomatic cover, influence operations, asset cultivation, and quiet logistics for harder things. The embassy is the platform. The staff are the operators. The propaganda is the recruitment funnel. The information collection feeds targeting, blackmail, and political interference.
Italy has been among Western Europe's softest targets for this. Decades of business ties, energy dependence, political factions that flirt with Moscovia, and a media environment where Kremlin narratives get laundered as contrarian opinion mean Russian intelligence can simply walk right in. It gets invited, normalized, and protected by useful idiots who call scrutiny paranoid.
The embassy is the platform. The staff are the operators.
The 2026 Context
The timing matters too. This is 2026, not 2014. The war is in its fourth year, sanctions are in place, and Moscovia is burning through its conventional military while doubling down on hybrid operations against NATO and EU states.
Every embassy staffer tied to intelligence work is not merely a diplomatic nuisance. They are part of the infrastructure of a war against European security. Italy hosting that network is not neutrality. It is vulnerability.
Expulsions Are Basic Hygiene
The investigation should force a simple question: why are these people still in the country? Expulsions are not escalation. They are basic hygiene. Every Western state that tolerates known Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover is subsidizing the next sabotage plot, the next assassination, the next disinformation campaign.
And the pattern is not unique to Rome. The same networks operate in:
- Vienna
- Geneva
- The Hague
- Berlin
- Washington
The difference is political will. Some governments expel, investigate, and prosecute. Others commission reports and then do nothing because the business lobby or a coalition partner objects.
What Happens Next
The work by @maxcoccia gives Italian authorities the names and the structure. What happens next will show whether Italy makes its own security a priority or a diplomatic inconvenience.
The Moscovian strategy relies on the second response. It has worked for years. It should not work anymore.