White, 49, who lives in Romford, east London, has denied claims of spying and insisted she was an unfair victim of discrimination because of her Russian heritage. She is no longer in a relationship with the Spanish naval commander.
White was never arrested nor has any investigation proved she is a foreign agent.
“I definitely know I am not a Russian spy. The last time I checked I wasn’t,” she told The Telegraph.
However, she claims that last month a Russian intelligence officer took her out for coffee and questioned her during a trip she took to St Petersburg to visit her ill father.
The spy, who White said was called Andrei and was from Russia’s Federal Security Service, spent two hours interrogating her at a cafe near the city’s metro station about the security investigation and her relationship with the Nato sailor.
Describing the encounter, White said: “They asked me if I knew anything about [my former partner’s] work. I said no. We had a rule at home that he wasn’t talking about his work.
“I knew he was dealing with the Russian shadow fleet and submarines. But it was a total prohibition of discussing any details at home about this.
“Half the questions were asking about how I met [my former partner] and how this gossip came about and how I felt about it.
“He was asking me about my sister and father and my husband. He was asking what my relationship with [my former partner] is now. I said we’re not in communication.”
“He was very pleasant and brought me a nice coffee,” she added.
White began her relationship with the Spanish officer, whom The Telegraph is not naming, in October 2024. It was shortly after she split up with her ex-husband, a prominent council leader who has visited No 10 Downing Street.
She moved into the sailor’s two-bedroom flat in Ruislip, west London, two weeks later. “We opened a joint bank account and started planning holidays and thinking about having babies,” she added.
Suspicions were raised when White was invited to a Christmas party in December 2024, which she attended with the Spaniard.
According to court documents, seen by The Telegraph, he invited her to the social event at Northwood’s Warrant Officers’ and Senior Rates’ mess on December 12, 2024, obtaining a one-day escorted visitor pass into the military base.
However, during the first half of 2025, “security concerns arose at Marcom” relating to the commander and his relationship with White, a shooting enthusiast, who attends a rifle range in Basildon, Essex.
“A Nato security investigation was commenced; so, too, was a Spanish security investigation. The UK was not involved in these processes, which resulted in a Spanish decision to suspend [the officer’s] national security clearance,” a court document said.
Northwood’s commanding officer was alerted to the investigation on June 19, 2025, and revoked the sailor’s access pass “pending the outcome of security investigations”.
‘The most secure Nato base in Europe’
White claimed that the next day, she had joined him on a trip to Nato’s premier maritime battle staff and high-readiness headquarters in Oeiras, Portugal, while the sailor attended a defence event there.
Access to the naval HQ was granted to the Spanish officer 10 days after his Northwood security pass had been revoked and while he was still under investigation.
White insisted her time on the base had been innocent and that she was never given access to secure areas. She claimed the fact that she had been granted permission to be on the base showed she was not deemed a security threat by the Portuguese.
“We entered the base and, while he had access to all these super secure computers and data somewhere, I was sitting at the pool drinking coffee and tea enjoying myself,” she said. “I never gained access to any super secret facilities.
“I spent two days at probably the most secure Nato base in Europe,” she added, claiming she had been “bored”.
On July 29, 2025, the sailor’s posting to Marcom “was terminated by the Spanish authorities”, court papers said.
Weeks later, on August 26, he and White, and an unnamed third person, “attempted to enter Northwood, purportedly to have lunch” despite the Spaniard’s access pass having been suspended.
“[The Spanish officer] asserted that he had mislaid his own pass and requested visitor passes for Ms White and the third person: this was not true,” court papers detailing the incident said.
“Consistently with the Commanding Officer’s suspension of access, [the Spanish sailor] and his guests were refused entry and advised to leave the site boundary. Ms White declined to do so.”
White, who was born in Soviet Russia but moved to Poland as a girl before immigrating to the UK as a teenager, claimed she was a solicitor representing her then partner and that they were seeking to collect some of his belongings.
Base security refused to allow them onto the site and police were later called. The couple left without being arrested or detained.
Commander ‘treated as an outsider’
The Spaniard said the claims had an “enormous” effect on his family and career after “35 years of exemplary, unblemished service”.
In an email sent to Vice-Admiral Mike Utley, a British naval commander, and seen by The Telegraph, he complained about being “subjected to a gradual and calculated process of social and professional isolation”.
His ex-wife, their two children, and White were “progressively excluded from social interactions”, he claimed.
“Children in the Spanish community, mimicking the conduct of their parents, refused to greet, play with, or socially engage with my children,” he wrote.
“What should have been a safe and supportive environment for military families became hostile and divisive. The psychological toll of this cruelty on my family, with my former partner as well as with my new partner, was enormous.”
He said he was shunned by colleagues as part of a “pattern of professional coldness” and was “treated not as a peer, but as an unwelcome outsider”.
White claimed her former partner, who has returned to Spain and is no longer actively working with the navy, attempted to take his own life in September 2024.
“He felt betrayed by the navy. The Spanish state was supposed to protect him. I understand his feelings. I feel Britain, my country, betrayed me,” she added.
White has launched a series of complaints over the allegations and is seeking a judicial review of why she was named an “adverse security risk” by officials at Northwood.
She has also launched a discrimination case against the Ministry of Defence (MoD), claiming the accusations were made against her because of her birthplace.
‘Britain treated me like an enemy’
“As a lawyer, I can see a huge legal defect in the whole situation,” she said. “Firstly, all my rights were taken away from me because I was born in the wrong country.
“The whole state machine treated me like an enemy. I want to know why this decision was made, who made it, and I want this decision to be quashed. I want the whole chain to be purified.”
She claimed the allegations against her left her feeling isolated and alone, with her former boyfriend’s colleagues and their partners publicly shunning her.
“I was living in this hostile environment as this ‘Russian spy’,” she said. “I was like an outcast. I called myself an invisible woman.”
“I wasn’t trying to get access to Northwood HQ illegally,” she added.
White claimed the espionage “rumours” were started by the partners of other officers on the base before being passed on to counter-intelligence officers in Nato.
A spokesman for Hertfordshire Police confirmed officers were called to an incident at Northwood but no arrests were made.
Commander Tim Pietrack, a Marcom spokesman, said: “Marcom does not comment on personnel matters. Nato remains fully committed to protecting allied personnel, safeguarding classified information, and maintaining the trust and security upon which the alliance depends.”
A spokesman for the MoD said: “It would be inappropriate to comment on matters subject to ongoing legal proceedings.”
Nato has been approached for comment.
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