Margaret Thatcher led the UK into battle with Argentina in 1982 after the South American country, led by then-then Argentine leader General Leopoldo Galtieri, invaded the British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands. A ten-week battle ensued and, with Ronald Reagan’s US backing, the UK secured victory and a subsequent a re-election for Mrs Thatcher. However, some Argentinians have never forgotten their ambitions to claim the islands as their own. Only recently the front-runner in the Presidential electoral race, Peronist Alberto Fernández, warned he may “renew claims of sovereignty” over the archipelago if he gets into office.
When Argentina tried to take over the Malvinas (the Spanish name for the Falkland Islands) in 1982, it was rumoured that the Communist state of the Soviet Union was actually assisting the nation on the side, although neither country confirmed this. The Soviet Union, then led by Leonid Brezhnev, was potentially causing further problems by fighting against its NATO ally, the UK.
Then in April 2010, The Times reported how a Russian journalist called Sergei Brilev had released a book called ‘Fidel, Football and the Malvinas’ and claimed Argentina may have received secret information of Britain’s location through the Soviet Union during the conflict.
Argentina was anti-communist and had even tried to side with the US during the Cold War, so the alliance was a surprising union between the countries.
Writing in The Times, journalist Tony Halpin explained Mr Brilev’s discovery: “Moscow made an unlikely ally for the right-wing junta that had occupied the islands but the journalist Sergei Brilev has uncovered evidence that the Soviet Union was spying on the British at the height of the 1982 conflict.”
Mr Halpin explained how the Kremlin reportedly “came close to thwarting the Falklands expedition” as well as the “career of Margaret Thatcher”.
Mr Brilev claimed they passed vital intelligence to the Argentina Air Force from Soviet satellites positioned over the war zone and he interviewed former KGB and Red Army generals who confirmed his claims that Moscow was tracking the Royal Navy.
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It is believed the Soviet Union assisted by offering a satellite in May which helped attack landing British targets and sink HMS Coventry and the Atlantic Conveyor.
He continued: “The exact data passed is still classified but there are coincidence of chronology that show that several Argentine successes may have been the result of what the Soviet’s provided.
“Argentina did not have the intelligence capability to track those ships. It’s quite possible that they got the co-ordinates from the Soviets.”
It is also believed that at the time of the war, both Argentina and the UK were looking for easy victories because both governments had briefly fallen out of public favour.
Neither had expected the war to evolve into the 74-day event that it did.
However, once the Argentine General Galtieri was overthrown later than same year, Argentina “cut intelligence links with Moscow”. Mrs Thatcher even went on to establish a relationship with the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev two years later.