On June 1, 2023, the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Slovakia charged former Minister of Justice Štefan Harabin with extremism for his public support of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. On February 25, 2022, Harabin said he supported the Russian invasion and wrote that if he were Putin, he would have done the same (by the way, in 2019, Harabin ran for president of Slovakia ending up third in the election race).
Pictured: Štefan Harabin
On the aforementioned charge alone however, Kharabin faces no more than three years in prison.
In the meantime, Ukrainian hacktivists of the Cyber Resistance team provided InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community with additional facts evidencing that Kharabin might have committed a more serious offense. In particular, that he was recruited by, and worked for, Russian foreign intelligence.
This conclusion may be drawn from some of the letters and documents the hacktivists obtained by hacking e-mails of the so-called Russian “Academy of Geopolitical Problems” – a typical soft power arm of the Russian intelligence serving to help its foreign agents.
For example, we learned from the e-mail below that Štefan Harabin was a guest of honor and a speaker at the meeting of the Presidium of the Scientific Council of the Academy held on June 30, 2022. The title of Harabin’s report clearly shows what it aims to propagate: “The rise of fascism in the EU and, in particular, in Ukraine amidst a decline in democracy and human rights.”
When Slovak law enforcers came after Harabin, the Academy members started an operation to rescue their agent (whom they openly called “our foreign trooper”) through the prosecution of the Slovak investigator handling the Harabin case.
The handover of the interrogation transcript to the Russians is an additional fact of Harabin’s collaboration with the Russian intelligence service and a piece of circumstantial evidence showing the degree of Štefan Harabin’s accountability to his handlers.
Having obtained the personal data of investigating officer Martin Kochlič in charge of the Harabin case from the interrogation transcript, the Academy filed complaints with the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation seeking to institute criminal proceedings against the Slovak investigator (what is this, if not an attempt to exert pressure on the investigation?).
Below are the documents evidencing the Academy members’ attempts to prosecute the Slovak officer investigating the Harabin case.
This example demonstrates how Russian “soft power” organizations, working with their agents to further the goals of the Russian intelligence, not only try and interfere with the internal affairs of EU countries, but also use the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation as a pressure tool to institute proceedings against investigators who expose Russian agents.
Read more publications based on the data from Cyber Resistance hacktivists
- Hacking a Russian war criminal, deputy commander of the OMON of the Krasnoyarsk Krai
- Hacking a Russian war criminal, commander of 960th Assault Aviation Regiment
- Hacking Russian Z-volunteer Mikhail Luchin who ordered sex toys for $25,000 instead of drones for the Russian army.
- BagdasarovLeaks: hacking ex-member of the Russian State Duma Semyon Bagdasarov. Iranian gambit
- Hacked: Russian GRU officer wanted by the FBI, leader of the hacker group APT 28
- Hacking “James Bond”: medical service commander of 960th Assault Aviation Regiment doxed key personnel of his own unit
- Hacking Andrey Lugovoy, member of the Russian State Duma, First Deputy Head of the Security Committee
- Ukrainian hacktivists acquired first-ever photo of the GRU hacker unit commander wanted by the FBI for meddling in the U.S. election
