The episode occurred last night and ended this morning, after 1 o’clock. The protagonists also do not fully understand what specifically happened. Whether it was an act of espionage, an innocent coincidence or a crude maneuver carried out by the wrong people. The truth is that yesterday afternoon, two men of Russian nationality, who were with a baby stroller, appeared at the doors of Congress to request that security recover a drone they said they had “lost” earlier that day.
The confusing event adds to what happened last week, when two diplomats from the Russian Embassy refused to take a breathalyzer test from the Transit Directorate of the city of Buenos Aires. And to the revelation that two spies lived for years in Argentina and they were received with honors and decorated by Vladimir Putin himself for their service activities.
The specific thing is that on Saturday afternoon, two Russians showed up at the door of Hipólito Yrigoyen of the National Congress to report that their drone had been lost. They did not provide details, but asked to be able to recover it. Given this situation, and notified by Vice President Victoria Villarruel – who is responsible for the security of the Palace – she requested the intervention of personnel from the Federal Police and the Explosives Division to carry out a search.
The foreign citizens said that the area where they believed he had been lost, and they asked the building’s security personnel that, if they found him, they would hand him over to the police station, where they would go look for him, according to what they learned. Infobae from sources aware of the fact.
Given the suspicious nature of the incident, they were deployed with authorization from the Chamber of Deputies to check every corner of the building. They carried out an inspection of the external areas, terraces and internal patios to verify if, in fact, a drone had flown over that building. The protocol that governs these cases was applied and, After 1 a.m. this Sunday they found him.
The artifact found is a small DJI brand device, model MAVIC minio PRO4, with a Samsung brand memory, which at first did not appear to have a very high cost, but which had two key capabilities: record images and also record sounds.
Given the discovery, according to what he was able to reconstruct Infobae From the sources aware of the investigation, the Federal Justice was given intervention. According to the reconstruction of the events, this morning three citizens of Russian origin appeared before the police station corresponding to Congress, two with passports and one with a DNI issued by Argentina.
The latter had entered in May and in October they gave him permanent residence: according to the documentation accessed by Infobae, his name is Pavel Bandurin, while the other two have a Russian passport, and are just over 20 years old. Of the other two, one was identified as Igor Lomakin, from Brazil, and Vitaly Kharlabo, from Ethiopia. The latter had the immigration category of tourist.
According to the information accessed by this media, in federal court No. 2, headed by Sebastián Ramos, the people involved were identified, and no action was taken, until the fact can be reliably clarified and the intentions of those overflights in Congress.
The confusing episode of the drone adds to what happened last Wednesday, in the early hours of Christmas, when two drivers of diplomatic cars from the Russian Embassy They refused to take the test after being detained by traffic agents from the City of Buenos Aires within the framework of the Buenos Aires government’s road safety operation for these Holidays.
The first driver of A diplomatic car from the Russian embassy, identified as Sergei Baldin, refused to perform a breathalyzer test around 10:45, after being detained as part of the road safety operation carried out on Avenida del Libertador at 1000.
If (38), aboard a Volkswagen Vento white with domain “D094CSB”, did not agree to provide the required documentation through the checkpoint or to carry out the breathalyzer test to determine the exact level of alcohol in your blood.
The City Police worked at the scene after the call of the traffic agents and, finally, the officers escorted the car to the Russian Embassy. Once there, the corresponding minutes were made.
Meanwhile, the second episode took place an hour later. The driver of the other diplomatic car, a Toyota Corolla, refused, at the same checkpoint in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recolet, to take the breathalyzer test.
Official sources informed Infobae that it is about the Russian citizen Salomatín Cardmath. Finally, he was also escorted to his country’s embassy.
Last year, meanwhile, the story of Maria Rosa Mayer Muños and Ludwig Gisch, a couple who had been arrested in December 2022 in Slovenia, became known. Both of their Argentine passports were seized.
However, after almost three months of investigation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, Tanja Fajon, confirmed what was suspected: Maria Rosa Mayer Muños and Ludwig Gisch are not Argentines, but Russians. And spies.
To hide that they were actually elite Russian spies, Mayer Muños opened an art gallery on the internet, while Gisch led a startup computing. Thus they camouflaged their true identity for some time until last year when an anonymous source alerted the Slovenian authorities about their presence.
Gisch was the one who used the Argentine passport. He claimed to have been born in Namibia in 1984. He directed DSM&ITa company that offered security software. The company’s presence on social networks is not particularly impressive.
Two sources with detailed knowledge of the case revealed that Mayer Muños and Gisch worked for the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR. Unlike “legal” Russian intelligence agents, these members operate without visible ties to Moscow.
Finally, in August last year, the couple was returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange. Anna Valereva Dulceva and Artem Viktorovic Dulcev (such as their real names) were received with honors by Vladimir Putin. Both arrived in Moscow with their two children who were born in Argentina.
