Anyone can be a target, no matter how junior, the email added, with “common covers” including “diplomats, journalists, lobbyists, scientists or PhD students”.

Belgian security officials estimate that in some embassies between 10 and 20 percent of diplomats are intelligence officers, while one in five Chinese journalists working in Brussels are suspected of being intelligence officers.

EU diplomatic service ADVISED his staff on the threat of Russian and Chinese espionage in 2019, warning that hundreds of spies from Beijing and Moscow are sneaking around the Belgian capital and eavesdropping on conversations in bars and restaurants near the Commission’s headquarters.

A broad review of the bloc’s preparedness for war and crisis last month recommended The EU is setting up its own intelligence agency to help countries avoid foreign threats, saboteurs and agents.

Following is the suggestion WARNINGS from Western intelligence agencies and spy chiefs around the bloc that the threat of Russian espionage has increased since early 2022, since the Kremlin began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.