Emissaries of the Catalan government had been travelling to Moscow up until 2020 to secretly obtain Putin's support

Quim Torra's government and Carles Puigdemont's entourage carried out business in Russia at least up to February 2020 to try to get Vladimir Putin to support the plans for Catalan independence. A senior official of the Generalitat, Puigdemont's right-hand man Josep Lluís Alay, travelled to Moscow to meet with intelligence agents, journalists involved in Kremlin propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and an advisor to the Russian Ministry of Energy, with the aim of establishing a secret channel of collaboration with Putin's administration, as confirmed to El Confidencial by direct protagonists of these conversations and other sources close to the meetings.

The first contacts of the independence movement with the Kremlin date back to 2015, two years prior to the Catalan independence referendum, but the talks continued and even intensified after it took place. Alay, Puigdemont's chief advisor and current head of his office, a regional government position paid for with public funds, flew to Moscow in March 2019 with the intention of participating in a cycle of conferences held at the Russian State University for the Humanities on the 7th of that month. However, Alay's real goal was to personally meet Sergei Sumin, a colonel of the Federal Protective Service (FSO) who is part of Putin's personal security detail, to establish a first channel of communication with the Kremlin.

Alay flew to Moscow on behalf of Puigdemont and the then president of the Catalan Regional Government, Quim Torra. He was accompanied by Alexander Dmitrenko, a Russian businessman based in Barcelona who acted as an intermediary between the secessionist movement and Putin's government, as reported by The New York Times last September.

At the time, Dmitrenko was the ambassador to Russia for the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, a post to which he was appointed by the then president of the institution, Joan Canadell, current deputy of the Junts per Catalunya party. Dmitrenko applied to obtain Spanish nationality in 2018, but the request was denied due to the opposition of the Spanish National Intelligence Centre, which warned of his relationship with "Russian Intelligence Services, from which he receives missions", and his "contacts with some of the main leaders of transnational organized crime of Russian origin, for whom he carries out tasks".

Alay and Dmitrenko were finally able to meet with Sumin and establish first contact with Putin's circle. They also met with journalist Edvard Chesnokov, deputy editor of the international section of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia's second largest daily newspaper and a key player in the Kremlin's propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine. As was previously reported by El Confidencial, Alay even visited the offices of Komsomolskaya Pravda and had his picture taken next to a portrait of Putin. Puigdemont was interviewed by that media outlet and published an opinion piece in October 2019 in which he denounced the European Union for allowing Spain to "use violence against its citizens", in reference to the riots that took place in Barcelona after the ruling on the referendum.

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Dmitrenko denies having any kind of relationship with his country's intelligence services. "I am not a Russian spy and I only accompanied Mr. Alay to help him with translations and university lectures. He was helping me with a project to establish an innovation centre, which already exists in Russia and other countries, in Barcelona," he stated in response to our questions.

Alay and Dmitrenko flew to Moscow again on June 16, 2019. On that occasion, they did so accompanied by a third person, Roc Fernández i Badiella, who at the time was the head of Digital Content of the Catalan government and is currently a deputy for the regional Health Department’s Secretariat of Healthcare and Participation, as well as a municipal representative at Òmnium Cultural. Fernández has acknowledged his presence in the Russian capital and meetings with Alay and Dmitrenko, but denies contacts with authorities in that country. "I was on vacation because my wife is Russian and I stayed one day with Alay in Moscow to visit an Asian and Tibetan Museum. Then I saw Dmitrenko," he explains.

Once again, Alay used a visit to a university, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO, in Russian), as a cover for the trip. Puigdemont's right-hand man took advantage of this second trip to meet with a professor at the institution, Andrei Bezrukov, a former officer of the SVR (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) who spent years stationed in the United States under the false identity of Donald Howard Heathfield. Bezrukov and his wife, Elena Vavilova, also an SVR agent, were discovered in 2010 and subsequently released in a U.S.-Russia spy swap. Bezrukov was introduced to Alay as the real starting point for establishing relations with Russian intelligence services and the Kremlin itself. Vavilova told her story and that of her husband in a book that was translated into Catalan by Alay in March 2021.

During that second visit to Moscow, Alay also met with Evgeni Primakov, a former member of the State Duma for the United Russia Party, former journalist for the state broadcaster Russia 24, and grandson of former Russian Prime Minister and former head of the SVR Evgenii Primakov. In June 2020, Primakov was appointed by Putin as head of the Federal Agency for Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), a government agency under Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that is part of Russia's powerful network of influence outside its borders.

Alay asked Primakov for the support of Kremlin-controlled media in backing Catalan independence. As a result, Puigdemont was interviewed in October 2019 by Anastasia Popova, the Brussels correspondent of Russia 24, the information channel of the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK). In addition, during those months, the former president of the Generalitat was granted a slot in the schedule of the state television channels Russia Today and Sputnik, banned two weeks ago by the European Union for the "systematic manipulation of information" and its role in "destabilizing” Western democracies.

According to El Confidencial's enquiries, during that second stay in Moscow, the head of Puigdemont's Office also met with Arkady Seregin, an advisor to the Russian Ministry of Energy linked to the SVR. The secessionist movement still considers it a priority to find energy sources that would guarantee Catalonia's supply in case of total rupture with the rest of Spain. Alay himself participated with Dmitrenko in a 2020 brokerage operation for the sale of Russian oil to a Chinese company, as evidenced by conversations held via Alay's phone which were intervened as part of the proceedings of the Voloh case, of Barcelona Instructional Court No 1.

Negotiations then continued on Spanish territory. Sumin flew to Barcelona on October 17, 2019, amid the Tsunami Democràtic demonstrations and other street protests over the Supreme Court's ruling against the ringleaders of the referendum. Sumin arrived in Barcelona accompanied by Russian businessman Artyom Lukoyanov, another link with high-level Moscow contacts and the adoptive son of Vladislav Surkov, considered the Kremlin's reference ideologue. He oversaw the development of the concept of hybrid warfare, characterized by the use of insurgents, fake news, mercenaries, the financing of extreme parties, or migratory movements to destabilize another country. His influence over Putin is so decisive that he is known as the "grey cardinal” of the Kremlin. Between 2013 and 2020, he held the position of presidential advisor and was involved during that time in designing Russia's interventions in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Syria, and Ukraine.

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Sumin and Lukoyanov stayed at a hotel in the Via Layetana area and met on several occasions with Alay and Dmitrenko. At least one of the meetings took place at a restaurant owned by the latter, called Haddock.

Alay travelled to Moscow a third time in February 2020, just before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Puigdemont's collaborator met yet again with Primakov and Chesnokov to shore up the Kremlin's media support for Catalan secessionism. According to sources familiar with the trip, Alay's goals also included a meeting with Edward Snowden, the former CIA and NSA employee who, in 2013, revealed the existence of a massive US spying program. He has been living in Russia since 2014. It has not been confirmed whether Alay finally managed to meet with him.

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Alay's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, also a lawyer for Puigdemont, confirms the three trips to Moscow by the head of the former president's Office. However, Boye assures that Alay's agenda in Russia was solely related to his academic and research activity. He admits the meetings with Bezrukov and Vavilova, as well as with Seregin and journalists close to the Kremlin, but attributes the meetings to his work as the spy's translator or chance encounters, and denies trying to approach the Kremlin.

The pandemic forced the secessionist movement to suspend its strategy of rapprochement with Russia. Most countries in Europe applied restrictions on the movement of people and closed their borders to foreign citizens. Airlines stopped flying altogether. However, the calls tapped for the Voloh case reveal that they remained in touch. In the summer of 2020, for example, Alay celebrated Primakov's appointment as director of the Federal Agency for Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo). He also advised Puigdemont not to post any messages on his social networks in support of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was nearly killed by a Kremlin-linked poisoning in August 2020. Alay believed that sharing such a message could make Putin uncomfortable.