An employee of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), who was arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia, is suspected of passing secret data on the situation in Ukraine to Moscow, writes The Wall Street Journal, citing German officials.
According to these data, Karsten L.'s department was processing secret intelligence from Russia and Ukraine, which was received by other Western intelligence services. This includes satellite images, intercepted conversations, etc.
As Tagesschau writes with reference to the materials of the radio companies WDR and DNR, information is being checked that a BND employee could have been blackmailed.
The arrest of German intelligence officer Karsten L., who secretly worked for Russia, became known on December 22. He was detained, his apartment and BND offices were searched.
Spies from Russia have been repeatedly exposed in Germany in recent years. In November, a court in Düsseldorf sentenced the reserve lieutenant colonel to one year and nine months probation. He contacted the GRU officers and passed them information about the reservists in Germany.
In the spring, a Munich court sentenced a scientist from the University of Augsburg to one year of probation. He gave the Russian Federation information about the European missile system.
Within the BND itself, the latest high-profile espionage scandal occurred in 2014, when an intelligence officer in charge of mail and the registration of classified information in the foreign relations department was arrested. It was reported that he was a CIA spy.