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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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A senior U.S. Army soldier arrested on suspicion of spying for Moscow was working for a NATO unit tasked with preparing for a Russian attack on alliance territory.
The 41-year-old man, who has not been identified, was arrested near the British city of Gloucester on Tuesday for offenses under Sections 1 and 3 of the U.K.'s National Security Act, police said. These sections relate to acquiring or disclosing protected information, and assisting a foreign intelligence service.
A senior NATO military official said the service member was assigned to NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). A NATO source told Newsweek the soldier was based at Imjin barracks, on the outskirts of Gloucester, which serves as the ARRC's headquarters.
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The source said the man is not an intelligence officer at the base.
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ARRC hosts the largest contingent of U.S. Army troops in the U.K. Just over 12,000 U.S. military personnel and civilian staff are stationed in the U.K., mainly working out of British air bases.
The ARRC is one of two pools of troops General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's top commander in Europe, could send to the Baltic states or Poland, should Russian forces pour across the border onto alliance soil.
ARRC soldiers have war-gamed how they would react to Moscow launching an armed assault on NATO members in the Baltics the coming years, despite Russia dismissing claims it plans to attack the alliance as "nonsense."
But some assessments, including from U.S. officials, say the Kremlin could attempt a small-scale land grab or increase its so-called hybrid attacks across Europe as soon as the next few months.
NATO's top officials warned in recent weeks Moscow is expanding its hybrid playbook, referring to a broad set of activities stopping short of open fighting, like cyberattacks, targeting vulnerable infrastructure like power grids or espionage campaigns.
Russia has been named as the alleged perpetrator or suspected of being involved in a string of incidents across the continent.
In September, Germany blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport the previous month. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the evidence of Russia being involved did "not exist and cannot exist."
The same month, General Grynkewich told the European Parliament Committee on Security and Defence there had been a "quantitative and qualitative increase" in Russian hybrid activities.
"This important arrest involves allegations of espionage, which is of the utmost concern to the United States and our allies," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
Patel said the agency had made 167 arrests on counterintelligence and espionage grounds in the past 21 months, and said this was a 53 percent increase, without specifying the time frame.
The U.K.'s counterterrorism police said they had worked closely with U.S. authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) and the U.S. military.
Authorities searched two locations in the Gloucestershire area and the U.S. service member is being held at a police station in London.
"The alleged conduct of a senior soldier, entrusted with sensitive information, is a sobering reminder that insider threats are real and persistent," said Brigadier General Sean Stinchon, the commanding general of U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing in the UK, called the allegations "serious" and said the investigation was ongoing.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Trevor Davies
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