A recently arrested Russian spy inside the German armed forces had access to “state-of-the-art warfare systems,” German newspapers report. Earlier this week, German authorities had caught a military officer on the charges of spying for Moscow.
The suspect, who was repeatedly seen leaving the Russian consulate in the city of Bonn, worked for the electronic warfare unit of the German military, or the Bundewehr, and had intimate knowledge of advanced systems.
The man, held the rank of a Captain in the Bundeswehr, and “is believed to have had sensitive information on [German] armament projects,” the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung reported.
According to German magazine Der Spiegel, the compromised electronic warfare capability “includes secret techniques of monitoring and jamming enemy radio systems and also for disabling enemy radar and anti-aircraft systems.” The electronic warfare unit in question “also deals with equipment of the elite detachment of the ‘Special Forces Commandos,’ which is supplied with the latest and most modern weapon systems available on the market,” the German weekly added.
The German state-run DW TV reported:
A German man arrested earlier this week for allegedly spying for Moscow had access to highly sensitive information, German media reported on Friday.The man, named by prosecutors as Thomas H., worked at a procurement unit of the military, the German Spiegel Online magazine website and Zeit newspaper said.The department has several tasks, including the procurement of highly modern systems for electronic warfare.The man, who was identified as Thomas H, had visited the embassy and consulate “on his own initiative” multiple times since May and offered his cooperation, prosecutors said in a statement.He is suspected of providing information on his work for a division of the German military, the Bundeswehr, to the diplomatic missions with the intention of having it passed on to a Russian secret service.The man worked for the Bundeswehr’s procurement agency, the Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support department. The agency is based in Koblenz, where the man was arrested.The modern systems in question include technology for the surveillance and disruption of opponents’ radio systems and the shutting down of enemy radio or air shield systems. The department also handles modern weapons used by elite commandos.Spiegel cited unnamed security sources as saying the suspect had “extensive access” to the German military’s electronic capabilities. To gain such access, one has to pass stringent security checks.
The latest spying incident highlights the crumbling moral and military infrastructure of the German armed forces. Germany’s Bundeswehr, perhaps the most woke military in Europe, is struggling to cope with a new threats emerging to Europe from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Defying former U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to fulfill their pledge to NATO by raising their defense budget, Germany Chancellor Angela Markel and the subsequent socialist-led government stripped the military of its fighting capabilities.
Chancellor Merkel embarked on a mission to make the Bundeswehr more ‘gender sensitive’ and ‘family friendly.’ She stressed making Germany’s primary fighting force more ‘colorful,’ or ‘bunt’ to use the politically correct German term, and welcomed to all ‘gender minorities.’ Despite objections from the military leadership, Berlin in 2016 opened the Bundeswehr to foreigners.
Berlin was more concerned with making the military more attractive to the ‘LGBTQIA+ community’ and getting rid of the ‘toxic masculinity’ infesting its ranks. In 2017, Germany’s parliamentary commissioner for military Hans-Peter Bartels, lamented that “Bundeswehr had a gender problem” for being too male-dominated.
Those chickens are now coming home to roost. On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the chief of the German army Alfons Mais, painfully admitted that “The Bundeswehr, the army that I am privileged to lead, is more or less bare.”
In March 2023, Germany’s parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, overseeing the military modernization, admitted that more than $100 billion of the emergency fund, released by the government in the wake of the Ukraine was, wouldn’t be enough to fix the country’s degraded military capabilities. The Bundeswehr needs at least $320 billion to get back on its feet, a senior German government official estimated.
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