Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar has rejected allegations linking her to a Russian intelligence network after reports about her friendship with a Russian-born Slovenian citizen triggered political demands for a security review.
The controversy emerged after Pirc Musar was injured in a road accident in the Kastelec tunnel in early August. Her longtime friend Viktorija Krivolucka was travelling in the official vehicle.
A joint investigation by Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik and Austria’s APA news agency subsequently examined Krivolucka’s background using publicly available Russian records.
The investigation reported that Krivolucka had previously been in a relationship with Roman Jeglič, a former deputy director of Slovenia’s post-independence Security and Intelligence Service, known as VIS, who later lived in Russia.
Russian records reportedly showed that Krivolucka and Jeglič were registered at the same address in Krasnoyarsk in 2009. Krivolucka said they had been a couple but had not been in contact for about 15 years.
The reporting also showed that Pirc Musar travelled privately to Russia several times with Krivolucka before becoming president. The president’s office said the visits to Moscow and St Petersburg were private trips with family and friends.
Žan Mahnič, an MP from the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party, called on the government and security agencies to stop providing intelligence and security briefings to the president and her office.
Mahnič said people in the president’s immediate circle may pose a security risk. He offered no publicly verified evidence that Pirc Musar or Krivolucka had cooperated with Russian intelligence.
The president’s office described his assertions as false and categorically denied that Pirc Musar had any connection to a Russian espionage network. It also said she had never met Jeglič.
Krivolucka separately denied working for Russian, Slovenian or any other intelligence service, saying she was being used as a political weapon against the president.
Slovenia’s intelligence agency, SOVA, did not alert the president’s office to any security concerns. Krivolucka underwent checks before receiving Slovenian citizenship in 2016, and no security risk was identified, according to the president’s office.
Parliament’s commission overseeing intelligence and security services has scheduled an emergency session to request information from SOVA about possible foreign influence on Slovenia’s sovereignty and national security.
The inquiry does not itself establish wrongdoing by the president or her friend.