The head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Martin Jäger, said Germany must become significantly more resilient to threats, above all from Russia. He made the remarks on Monday, 5 October, at a public hearing of the Bundestag’s Parliamentary Oversight Committee.
“Russia is waging a shadow war against us,” Jäger said. In his words, this undeclared war does not fit conventional military or legal categories: Germany is not formally in a state of defence, yet it is being attacked. Moscow, he said, is using a wide range of instruments of pressure, including intimidation campaigns. Low-intensity actions against individual NATO countries, he added, are no longer the exception.
Jäger warned that the confrontation with Russia has taken on a “new, more dangerous quality.” “Germany is in danger of being drawn into a violent conflict with Russia,” he said. At the same time, he said, there are currently no indications of a large-scale Russian attack on NATO territory being prepared. Low-threshold military action, above all in the Baltic region, as well as false-flag operations, cannot be ruled out.
The BND chief called Russia “our most dangerous adversary” and said Moscow regards Berlin as the main obstacle to Russian power projection in Europe. Germany did not seek the confrontation, he said: Moscow is imposing it because Berlin does not accept the war against Ukraine and is resisting pressure on its allies. Among the examples, Jäger cited the Leipzig plot: according to the intelligence services, explosive-laden drones were meant to hit a Ukrainian cargo aircraft. Russian intelligence services, he said, operate “highly professionally and ruthlessly,” and the threat of attacks on German soil remains “real and present.”
Jäger also pointed to Moscow’s efforts to disrupt Western arms deliveries to Kyiv. Since the summer, he said, Russia’s war against Ukraine has intensified markedly, while the Kremlin is simultaneously seeking to ensure that European capitals stop taking decisions Moscow opposes. “Moscow is betting on our weakness,” he said.
In this situation, Jäger stressed, the German intelligence services remain “the first line of defence.” At the same hearing, the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Sinan Selen, said Moscow’s repertoire includes a willingness to carry out sabotage and killings, as well as disinformation and attempted attacks, and warned that the situation is escalating further.
