“Since the murderous war that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is waging against Ukraine, we too have been experiencing hybrid threats in a different dimension,” the SPD politician continued. At the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, counterintelligence has been “massively strengthened,” both in terms of personnel and technology. “This is now having an impact.”
“For the first time, we were also dealing with the danger of Russian explosive attacks in Germany, which were intended to prevent our military support for Ukraine. Our security authorities also stopped that,” continued Faeser. In the past two years, a large number of Russian spies have already been expelled from the country. Action will continue “because Germany is the focus.”
“The latest arrests show how vigilant our security authorities are and how consistently they strike,” said the Interior Minister. “This applies to espionage, possible acts of sabotage, cyber attacks and influence operations by Putin’s criminal regime, as well as to the threat of Chinese espionage and influence operations aimed at politics, business and science.”
Four German citizens were arrested at the beginning of the week. The case of Jian G., the employee of the AfD’s top candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, is making particularly big waves. According to the Federal Prosecutor General, G. is accused of acting as an agent for a foreign secret service in a particularly serious case.
A man and a couple were also arrested in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses one of the accused of having obtained information on innovative technologies that could be used militarily on behalf of China.
In addition, two men were recently arrested in Bayreuth on suspicion of spying for Russia. The German-Russians are said to have prepared acts of sabotage and scouted out attack targets with a view to military aid for Ukraine.