Consulate in Munich Consulate No staff listed

The Wall Street Journal published this article on June 28th stating that “inside a stately art nouveau building in central Vienna, special-forces officers armed with submachine guns guard the home of Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist whose Academy Award-winning documentary exposed the Kremlin’s attempt to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Two years ago, Austrian intelligence and U.S. law enforcement warned Grozev that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spies were plotting to kill him. After living with his family for two decades in Austria, the Bulgaria-born Grozev fled to the U.S. in 2023. Now, when he returns to visit his family, who remained behind in Vienna, he receives a degree of state protection that rivals that of Austria’s chancellor, officials say. The failed murder plot is one of a series of incidents that show how Vienna has emerged as Russia’s new espionage hub in Europe after capitals there expelled 600 spies posing as diplomats in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. Dozens of these spies have since resurfaced in Austria, intelligence officials there say. In the past two years, the number of Russian state employees in Austria swelled to over 500 from 300 to 400, over a half of whom are diplomats and administrators, according to intelligence officials. Up to a half of them operate as spies, Austrian intelligence officials estimate. Last year, neighboring Germany closed the Russian consulate in Munich, which German officials said was hosting a number of spies. The Russian staff simply relocated to Salzburg, an Austrian city across the border to the east, Austrian intelligence officials say. Vienna is now a base for Russian clandestine operations, including financing and logistical support for murder, sabotage and recruitment across Europe, as well as industrial espionage and influence operations, according to over a dozen Austrian, European and U.S. intelligence and government officials. The Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”

El País reported on August 21st that “when Berlin was divided by its infamous wall, the city was reputed to be the spy capital of the Eastern communist bloc and also of the democratic and capitalist West. This appeared to be condemned to history when the Iron Curtain came down, marking the end of the Cold War. However, the city, which later became the capital of reunified Germany, did not lose its appeal to the secret services. Indeed, eight years ago, the then head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s counterintelligence services, Hans-Georg Maassen, referred to the city as a modern, active and thriving “espionage capital of Europe.” The city continues to draw agents, most of whom come from Russia. President Vladimir Putin — who in his youth served as a KGB officer in the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) — and his government are keen to understand everything about the assistance Germany has been providing to Ukraine since the Kremlin-ordered invasion on February 24, 2022. Last Wednesday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Koblenz announced the arrest of Thomas H., a captain who worked for the German Army’s Office of Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support, the agency in charge of the procurement of armaments and equipment for the Armed Forces. Thomas H., a supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and a sworn friend of Russia, was spotted several times in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin and in the vicinity. “He seemed insecure, like a shy deer,” said a state security official from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which is investigating the case in conjunction with the BfV and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD). According to the German Prosecutor’s Office, last May Thomas H. supplied information to the Russian Consulate in Bonn and the Moscow Embassy in Berlin. “On one occasion, he transmitted information obtained in the course of his professional activity, with the purpose of having it transferred to a Russian secret service,” the institution reported. The arrest of the German captain triggered a wave of reactions among politicians and intelligence services in Germany, where it is believed that Russian espionage has infiltrated many places. These concerns are not misplaced. A few weeks after the attack on Ukraine began, the Berlin city-state government announced that spies from at least three Russian secret services were operating out of the Russian embassy on the city’s Unter den Linden avenue. These were the successor to the KGB, the Federal Security Service (FSB); the Foreign Intelligence Service (SWR), whose agents passed themselves off as diplomats or journalists; and the Russia’s military intelligence service (GRU). “There must be over 100 spies with diplomatic cover, and a year ago there were almost 150,″ said a Foreign Ministry official, pointing out that his department expelled 40 foreign agents in April 2022. “The entrances to the Russian Embassy in Berlin and the Russian Consulates General in Bonn, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich are filmed and monitored 24 hours a day by cameras of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [German counterintelligence].”.”

Der Spiegel and Reuters reported that shortly after the detention of the Russian recruited agent Ilnur N. in the summer of 2021, a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) officer was expelled from the Russian Consulate of Munich. The expelled SVR officer was the handler Ilnur N. whose charges were announced on Thursday, January 27. Ilnur N. was an Augsburg University researcher who is accused of espionage acts of passing information about Europe’s Ariane space launch vehicle to his SVR handler.