Ukrainian man held in Germany on suspicion of spying for Russia on arms industry
German federal prosecutors had a Ukrainian man arrested in Brandenburg on suspicion of gathering information for Russian intelligence on tanks, ammunition and NATO's eastern flank.
Symbolic image · Photo: 2AgentSmith2 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Officers of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) arrested a Ukrainian national in the Oder-Spree district of Brandenburg on Thursday, the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe said. Prosecutors accuse the man of working as an agent for a Russian intelligence service. The arrest followed information from Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The suspect was not named and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
According to investigators, the man had been in contact with the Russian service through an intermediary since July 2025 at the latest. He is suspected of gathering militarily relevant information, including on the production of tanks, ammunition and explosives, and on personnel and military sites involved in securing NATO's eastern flank. Some of the material was publicly available. For other information, prosecutors said the suspect deliberately sounded out people working in the European defence industry.
The suspect is due to appear on Friday before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice, who will decide whether to hold him in pre-trial detention. Authorities gave no further details about him or the alleged intermediary.