Italy has ordered the expulsion of two Russian military attachés, Ivan Petrovich Gorbachev and Mikhail Vasilyevich Astakhov, giving them three days to leave the country. The decision, announced by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on 9 July, follows a counter-intelligence investigation by the Rome prosecutor’s office that led to the arrest of two former officials of Italy’s internal security agency, AISI. The expulsions take immediate diplomatic effect: the Russian ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry to be notified, and Moscow has already signalled it will deliver a “corresponding response,” raising the prospect of tit-for-tat expulsions of Italian diplomats.

Rome’s position, as articulated by Tajani, is that the two attachés were directly responsible for espionage activities that compromised national security. Italian investigators assert that the men acted as handlers for a network that included Gavino Raoul Piras and Vincenzo Di Pasquale, both former AISI operatives now under house arrest. According to Italian judicial sources, the suspects passed classified information—ranging from details of the SAMP/T air-defence system destined for Ukraine to the identities of Italian counter-intelligence officers—in exchange for money. Tajani stressed that the expulsions were “based on facts, not caprice,” citing video and photographic evidence, and described the Russian activity as part of a “hybrid war” against the West. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto separately called the case “the tip of the iceberg.”

Moscow, through its foreign ministry and ambassador in Rome, has rejected the accusations as unfounded and politically driven. Ambassador Alexey Paramonov, in a Telegram post, accused the secretary-general of the Italian foreign ministry of seeking to “limit Russia’s influence” by expelling as many diplomats as possible, and contrasted Italy’s current leadership unfavourably with Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov. The Russian foreign ministry, without addressing the specific evidence, stated that a response would follow, a pattern consistent with previous espionage-related expulsions in Austria, Germany, Romania and Norway, where Moscow has routinely retaliated with symmetrical measures.

The investigation, which began in May 2025, has revealed what Italian prosecutors describe as a long-running intelligence breach. Piras, who had been investigated in 2023 for contacts with a previous Russian attaché—Damir Kurmashov, expelled at the time—resumed activity with Astakhov, who replaced Kurmashov. Intercepted communications, cited by Italian media, indicate that Piras provided thousands of items of information over a 12-year period, including details on drone production sites, NATO deployments in Bulgaria, and assessments of Iranian nuclear facility attacks. Five other individuals, among them four serving military personnel, remain under investigation. The dossier now moves into a phase of expected Russian retaliation, while Italian prosecutors continue to examine the full scope of the network.