The international navy intelligence company of the Russian Federation, recognized by its abbreviation GRU, at the moment has extra intelligence officers deployed in Mexico than in some other nation on the planet, with the ultimate objective of influencing the choices taken by america. That’s based on the commander of america Northern Command, Glen VanHerck, who issued this warning on Thursday throughout a listening to of america Senate Committee on Armed Companies, throughout which he added that the Kremlin is in search of to entry the US from the neighboring nation.
The knowledge emerged virtually similtaneously complaints that the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, made after proceedings had been held within the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday to inaugurate a Mexican-Russian “friendship committee” with the presence of diplomats from the Kremlin. The transfer got here simply earlier than the the invasion of Ukraine entered its second month.
“We’ve got to be in solidarity with Ukraine and in opposition to Russia,” mentioned Salazar in Mexico’s decrease home of Congress on Thursday. “The Russian ambassador was right here yesterday making numerous noise about how Mexico and Russia are so shut. This, sorry, can by no means occur. It might by no means occur,” he added.
In Washington, VanHerck has put the concentrate on Moscow’s operations in Mexico, the place Russia has one among its greatest embassies in Latin America. “I wish to level out that many of the GRU members on the planet are in Mexico for the time being. That’s Russian intelligence personnel. They usually maintain a really shut eye on their probabilities of influencing the alternatives and entry that america has,” he mentioned throughout the listening to.
The four-star common was answering questions from senators on the Committee on Armed Companies. He additionally said that there are actors resembling China and Russia which can be “very aggressive and energetic” in the entire space of the Northern Command’s space of accountability, together with the Bahamas and Mexico.
In at this time’s testimony to the SASC, Gen VanHerck highlighted the a number of simultaneous challenges @NORADCommand & USNORTHCOM face from strategic rivals who’ve overtly declared their intent to carry our homelands in danger in an effort to advance their very own pursuits. pic.twitter.com/6neoRxdv4S
— U.S. Northern Command (@USNorthernCmd) March 24, 2022
This was not the primary time {that a} member of the navy had made such statements. In September, VanHerck pointed to Russia as posing the best hazard for america. “Russia is the first navy risk to the homeland at this time. It’s not China – it’s Russia,” VanHerck instructed Air Power Journal.
GRU has been linked to a number of the most controversial actions blamed on Russia by the West in recent times, and counts by itself particular forces squads overseas. The group is without doubt one of the totally different teams which can be licensed to spy for the Russian authorities, together with the opposite businesses that succeeded the Soviet Union’s safety company, the KGB.
Within the opinion of the top of the US Northern Command, one of many penalties of the instability in Mexico that’s brought on by drug-trafficking cartels is that Russian or Chinese language spies can simply threaten US nationwide safety. Transnational prison organizations function virtually with out opposition and open the trail to corruption and violence that creates a breach that permits China and Russia to meddle in these nations, he mentioned.
In the meantime, in Mexico, Ambassador Salazar questioned the choice of some lawmakers to put in a pro-Russian group whereas the Ukrainian battle drags on. “I keep in mind very effectively that throughout the Second World Warfare there was no distance between Mexico and america, each had been united in opposition to what Hitler was doing,” he mentioned throughout the inauguration of one other friendship group in Mexico’s decrease home between Mexico and america.
These friendship teams would little doubt have handed unnoticed had been it not for the struggle in Ukraine. However within the context of the battle, the creation of the friendship committee between Russia and Mexico has been mired in controversy, and has been harshly criticized by the opposition as being “reckless” and “aberrant.”
The inauguration of the group meant a method into Mexico’s Congress, throughout an official ceremony, of the Russian model of the battle in Ukraine. This narrative has been branded as propaganda by the West and has been rejected by 140 nations on the Basic Meeting of the United Nations – together with Mexico, which “energetically” condemned the Russian assault on the finish of February.
In the meantime, the White Home is pushing for unity in Mexico over the battle. For Washington, its southern neighbor is a key ally in Latin America, a area the place Russia has discovered the worldwide backing that it lacks in different elements of the world and the place it counts on allies resembling the federal government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.
Amongst suspicions of spying and mutual accusations of propaganda, two formal ceremonies in Mexico sparked controversy and indignation hundreds of miles away from the armed battle, and in a area that’s accustomed to observing energy video games from distant. And in a rustic the place, till now, there have been no doubts about its place within the face of the Russian offensive.
