German intelligence warns: Russia's shadow war could escalate into a violent conflict

Russia's increasingly dangerous hostile actions could drag Germany into a violent conflict, warned Martin Jäger, head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, at a hearing before the Bundestag on October 5. According to a report by Agerpres citing EFE and AFP coverage, Jäger believes the confrontation with Russia has entered a new dimension, while the threat of attacks on targets in Germany remains real and immediate.

The head of the BND, together with the heads of domestic counterintelligence and military counterintelligence, briefed the lower house of parliament on the threats facing the country. As one of Ukraine's most important supporters, Germany has become a prime target of Russian operations, facing activities ranging from disinformation campaigns and espionage to sabotage and assassination attempts. Jäger cited as an example the August attempt to attack a Ukrainian transport aircraft with a drone at Leipzig airport. The main suspects in the case are Russian agents. According to the intelligence chief, Russia poses the most immediate, extensive and tangible threat to Germany because Berlin opposes Moscow's ambitions for power in Europe.

Russia is waging a shadow war against Germany, Jäger said, adding that this conflict without a declaration of war cannot be fitted into the usual military or legal categories. For this reason, Putin's Russia has become the focus of the BND's work. Based on the information available, the service considers it a realistic possibility that Moscow could carry out targeted, limited-scale actions against certain NATO member states. The danger does not stop at Germany's borders. According to Jäger, Russia's revisionist, expansionist foreign and security policy goals go beyond Ukraine, as the Baltic states are already experiencing firsthand. A similar situation could develop in the Baltic Sea region, and conditions on NATO's southeastern flank are not significantly different either. He described recent violations of allied countries' airspace as operations through which Russia is testing its adversaries' reactions.

The head of the BND stressed that neither Germany nor its allies sought this confrontation—Russia is forcing it upon them. He called support for Ukraine a fundamental German interest, the abandonment of which would have serious consequences for Germany, Europe and NATO alike. He also warned that it would be a grave mistake to regard the end of the war in Ukraine as the end of the conflict with Russia. Sinan Selen, head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), likewise emphasized that Russian activity has gone beyond traditional espionage. Sabotage and assassination operations are also targeting the defense industry and military infrastructure. As these warnings were being issued, Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke out in favor of continuing support for Ukraine, while in Germany the pro-Russian far-right AfD, which demands an end to such aid, continues to gain strength.

Behind the drones lies a war for our minds

To German intelligence's warning, however, it must be added that the war Russia has launched against Europe is far from limited to a few drone attacks, assassinations and similar acts. These are merely the most visible surface manifestations; beneath them, influence networks built over many years are working to erode our sound judgment, and in this they have had no small success. We immediately recognize a bombed facility as having been attacked, yet we tend to call the destruction wrought inside our own heads an independent opinion. For Germany, one of the gravest threats comes precisely from those brainwashed masses who believe the AfD is the solution to everything, that the European Union must fall apart, and who chant about sovereignty while voluntarily putting their heads in a yoke where the masters of Gazprom and Rosneft, arm in arm with Putin, wait for them with laughter. In the name of independence, they demand the dismantling of the very cooperation that would offer them protection, only to celebrate it as liberation when they once again become dependent on Russian power.

When we speak of cognitive warfare, this is also what we mean: the mass acceptance of contradictions, the fact that people can be mobilized even against their own interests while being convinced that they are finally thinking for themselves. Since in democracies these masses vote, a country's fate can be diverted even through a decision the country itself makes. Brexit, for example, showed what political power can arise when the narrowing of shared space can be sold under the promise of sovereignty. Resistance therefore cannot rely on intelligence services, the army or the political class alone. It also requires us: citizens who keep a clear head, who are still able to recognize contradictions, check a claim, and not confuse their own thoughts with what has been drilled into them for months or years. A drone can be shot down, a saboteur can be caught, but no intelligence service can protect, in our place, a society that already demands its own subjugation.

Source: G4Media