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A German court on Friday ordered a Ukrainian citizen held on suspicion of spying for Russia, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Germany is likely to see more such cases.
The Ukrainian, identified only as Vadym Y. under German privacy rules, is accused of gathering military information for Russia, including details about arms production and personnel and military facilities involved in securing NATO’s eastern flank, federal prosecutors said.
The man is believed to have been in contact with a Russian intelligence service through an intermediary since at least July 2025. Some of the information he collected was from public sources, prosecutors said, but other data was solicited from representatives of the European arms industry.
He was arrested in Brandenburg state in northeast Germany by the federal criminal police, prosecutors said.
“It is a success today that this case was uncovered,” Merz said on Thursday during a visit to Montenegro. “But let’s not fool ourselves. The activities of the Russian intelligence service in Germany remain as intense as ever.”
Merz said Germany was likely to see more such cases “in the coming months and years.”
Several people have been arrested in Germany this year for allegedly spying on behalf of Russia. In January, a German-Ukrainian woman was arrested on suspicion of gathering intelligence for a contact at the Russian Embassy. A Romanian woman was arrested in March for allegedly spying on a person who supplied drones and components to Ukraine from Germany.
Others arrested this and last year were accused of acting on behalf of Chinese or Iranian intelligence services.
In early October, August Hanning, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, known by its German acronym BND, from 1998 to 2005, was arrested on suspicion that he had passed state secrets to a foreign intelligence agency. Prosecutors didn’t identify the foreign intelligence agency he allegedly passed classified information.
