Senior German officials are suspected of spying for Moscow

German intelligence services are targeting two senior officials in the economy ministry on suspicion of spying for Moscow’s benefit. Energy issue, reports the weekly Die Zeit on Wednesday. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the authority responsible for counterintelligence, opened an investigation after members of the ministry expressed their suspicions about two senior officials, Die Zeit reported. The Economy and Climate Ministry declined to comment when asked by AFP.

The two officials drew attention from their colleagues by defending pro-Russian positions and criticizing Olaf Scholes’ government’s decisions on energy matters, particularly the shutdown of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany in February. A closer look at their curriculum vitae by the services showed that one of the two suspects had stayed in Russia. The two officers were a “Emotional intimacyWith Russia, the weekly noted that there was no concrete evidence of services.

A long list of scandals

Germany has been rocked in recent years by several espionage cases blamed on Russia. The dependence of Europe’s largest economy on Russian gas supplies has proven to be a weak point in the country since the invasion of Ukraine. Recently, German services pointed to Russian espionage activities aimed at training Ukrainian soldiers in Germany.

Read moreGermany: Briton suspected of spying for Moscow risks extradition to home country

A German judge handed down a two-year suspended prison sentence in late October to a former employee of a computer security company for passing data on the German Chamber of Deputies to Russia. In April, it also gave a Russian scientist a one-year suspended prison sentence on Moscow’s behalf for spying on Europe’s Ariane space program. Even before the Russian offensive in Ukraine, accusations of cyber espionage against Moscow have soured relations between Russians and Germans.

See more – War in Ukraine: Putin could push ‘nuclear button’ and enter ‘history’, says ex-Russian spy