A senior officer in the #counterespionage unit of #Australia’s premier #spy agency #ASIO has been exposed as a secret #KGB #mole, who stole and sold highly classified #intelligence to the Russians for at least five years. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-19/russia-spy-mole-in-asio-sold-cold-war-intelligence-four-corners/102469652

🇩🇪 intel service BND is experiencing severe backlash after 🇷🇺 double agent was discovered and detained.

As a result 🇬🇧 & 🇺🇸 intel services reduced flow of info to almost zero.

The suspect, C. L. (who is fully named in newspapers), appears to be an AfD sympathiser. AfD is a right wing extremist, xenophobic, nationalist party - which however is totally fanboying Russia and Putin. [1][2]

Besides his wife he is said to have two mistresses, which the FSB might have used against him in some sort of kompromat.

L. had a significant position inside the BND, working with "highly sensitive SIGINT from across NATO, has to be assumed to have been compromised".

Even worse, L. was the designated of internal security. Which means he would have been responsible for security clearance and background checks.
This would have positioned him to feed intel about agents directly to Moscow.

The breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2015 is a good example of how valuable such data is. [3] [4]

All of this matches the desasterous picture about German intelligence depicted by John Sipher - ret. CIA National Clandestine Service - in Sept. 2022. [5]
The Germans are not a reliable partner when it comes to RU - not because they can't but because politicians hold them back.

"For example, when voices from other countries have been raised that Russia increasingly poses a threat, German analysts and top people - mostly from the BND - have almost always reacted very arrogantly, claiming that they understand the Russians much better than anyone else."

What a shitshow.

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/germanys-big-russian-mole-scandal-gets-worse-and-involves-america

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/03/exclusive-german-football-coach-unmasked-russian-double-agent/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach

[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/opm-hack-security-breach-n389476

[5] https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/interview-mit-geheimdienst-experte-arrogant-unfaehig-buerokratisch-nutzlos-cia-experte-zerlegt-deutsche-spione_id_141194052.html

#BND #Germany #Russia #Intelligence #CounterEspionage #Espionage #Ukraine #Politics #SiPol #Sicherheitspolitik #Nachrichtendienst #SIGINT #NSA #CIA #GCHQ