An army reservist was accused of giving Russian intelligence information since 2014.
An officer in the German army reserve has been charged on allegations that he spied for Moscow’s intel service, and accused of passing sensitive military and financial information to Russia for nearly a decade.
Identified only as ‘Ralph G’ by local authorities, the man was charged in mid-March on suspicions that he “worked for a foreign secret service against the Federal Republic of Germany and against a NATO state party,” the country’s federal prosecutor’s office announced on Friday.
“Since October 2014 at the latest, he has been in contact with a Russian intelligence service officer through various people,”The prosecutors added that “Until March 2020, he forwarded documents and information to him on numerous occasions, some of which came from public, but also from non-public sources in connection with his activities as a reserve officer.”
According to some, the soldier served in the capacity of “deputy head”A local district liaison command “was a member of several committees of the German economy.”According to some, this role enabled him to offer his services. “insights from the economic sector,”This includes the 2014 Russian sanctions and the more recent penalty against Nord Stream 2 for its pipeline construction. Unspecified information was also shared by him about the Bundeswehr’s reservists, and its military-civil cooperation.
Though prosecutors did not offer much detail on the man’s motives, they did say that he received “invitations to events organized by Russian government agencies”In exchange for his “services,”This included the handing over “personal data” “high-ranking members”Of the military.
The indictment comes after an ex-employee of the UK’s embassy in Germany was picked up on similar charges in August, also accused of providing documents to Russian intelligence. Another German national was sentenced to two years behind bars late last year after allegedly giving copies of floor plans for parliamentary buildings to spies, while a Russian professor working at a German university, Ilnur Nagaev, is now standing trial on allegations that he shared sensitive details on the European Union’s space program with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
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