The president of Germany’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), Martina Rosenberg, denounced on Sunday a historic record of espionage attempts, especially on military installations and mainly undertaken by Russia and China.
Rosenberg warned that the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) are facing multiple threat scenarios, while the MAD continues to detect «numerous anomalies and espionage attempts» by intelligence services of other countries.
Recently, the MAD detected drone flights over Bundeswehr military sites and Ukrainian military training centers.
For example, the Defense Ministry reported that in the early morning of October 1, drones repeatedly flew over the military training area of Wildflecken (Bavaria) in southern Germany.
In late August, according to earlier reports, Russian intelligence services had attempted to spy on Ukrainian military training with Western weapons systems in Germany. Specifically, MAD had observed suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of the Idar-Oberstein (Rhineland-Palatinate) and Grafenwöhr (Bavaria) military sites.
According to Rosenberg, the activities of foreign intelligence services against the Bundeswehr were already at a «high level» before February 24, 2022, i.e. before Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
«The aim of our work is to detect any espionage activities, especially by Russian and Chinese intelligence services, at an early stage and to counter them effectively, also in cooperation with partner national and international authorities,» he added.
