Germany says monitoring Russia's use of ‘disposable' agents
European intelligence services believed that Russia was behind the plotKock declined to go into detail but said German authorities were 'closely observing the means Russian services are now resorting to'BERLIN: Germany said Wednesday it was monitoring changing Russian sabotage tactics, after media reports linked a plan to plant explosive devices on cargo planes to low-level operatives hired by Moscow.European intelligence services believed that Russia was behind the plot, which saw parcels explode at two DHL depots last July, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and public broadcasters WDR and NDR reported.Several people implicated in the operation were believed to be 'disposable' agents with no official position in the Russian intelligence services, according to the report.Such low-level agents were typically recruited via messaging apps to carry out tasks for money, the report said.Quizzed about the incidents at a regular press conference, German interior ministry spokeswoman Sonja Kock said investigations were 'continuing intensively.'Kock declined to go into detail but said German authorities were 'closely observing the means Russian services are now resorting to,' including the use of 'so-called low-level agents.'Kock also told the briefing that Russian intelligence services operating in Germany had been 'recently weakened by the expulsion of numerous agents.'Another interior ministry official later told AFP that she was referring to the April 2022 expulsion of 40 Russian diplomats who were intelligence officers, and further departures of diplomats the following year.The explosions at DHL depots in Leipzig, Germany and Birmingham in Britain have been described by Germany's domestic intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang as a 'lucky accident' because of the limited impact.Testifying before a parliamentary committee in October, Haldenwang said 'there would have been a crash' if the parcels had exploded mid-flight on planes.Kock said Wednesday that the 'danger of sabotage... has increased significantly in Germany since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.'German authorities were doing 'everything in our power to thwart... Russian espionage, sabotage and cyber-attacks,' she said.
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