Spies who were monitoring a former Ukrainian intelligence officer arrested in Germany

Photo: pixabay.com

In Germany, three men who were arrested back in June of this year are accused of spying on a former Ukrainian officer and a secret service employee as alleged agents.

This is stated in the ruling of the Federal Court (BGH), data from which is cited by the German publication Zeit.

The information that the suspected spies were supposed to collect was intended, with a “high degree of probability,” to prepare for further intelligence operations in Germany.

It is possible that the ultimate goal was to kill the target or kidnap him from Germany, the publication writes.

It is noted that the German federal prosecutor’s office arrested three suspected spies in Frankfurt am Main in June.

According to the prosecutor's office, they were citizens of Ukraine, Armenia and Russia. They were supposed to collect information about a person from Ukraine living in Germany on behalf of a foreign secret service.

According to the BGH ruling, it has not yet been possible to establish which secret service was involved, but it was most likely Russian.

The spies' intended target was a former Ukrainian officer working for Ukrainian military intelligence.

Russian propaganda media accused him of allegedly committing war crimes. No later than spring 2024, the man became “the target of a foreign intelligence service's efforts to spy on him,” the German Federal Court wrote.

According to the case file, an unknown person initially offered the former officer a job with the Ukrainian domestic intelligence service in Germany by telephone. He initially agreed, but then learned through his own contact with the secret service that the offer was false. He then reported the matter to the German police.

They agreed to meet in a café in Frankfurt, which the Ukrainian agreed to “for the sake of appearances” so that the spies would trust him.

The three men, who were arrested in June, were supposed to accompany an unknown contact to the meeting.

When the target did not show up at the meeting place, the men left the café and were arrested a short time later by officers from the Hesse Criminal Investigation Department.

Investigators found a GPS transmitter in the car, which was supposed to have been attached to the target's car.

Prepared by: Sergey Daga