Allied Intelligence — 2026-09-15

German Military Counter-Intelligence Agency MAD Warns of Rising Chinese and Russian Spy Threat in Annual Report

BLUFMAD's inaugural mandated report frames Germany as a priority espionage target to justify expanded counterintelligence authorities, but withheld comparative data undercuts its core claim of escalating sabotage risk.

Germany's military counter-intelligence agency MAD, in its annual report released Monday, said Russia and China remained the primary actors behind attacks on the Bundeswehr in 2025, including espionage cases, drone overflights and cyber threats 12. MAD called Germany a "prioritized target of Russian espionage activities," citing the country's geostrategic position in NATO, the expansion of the Bundeswehr and new weapons systems as drivers, and said the potential for sabotage by recruited "low-level agents" has grown, though the report gave no comparative figures 23. The agency said Russian embassies, semi-governmental organizations and press agencies serve as cover for intelligence collection, and noted that Bundeswehr personnel traveling to Russia or Belarus, often to visit family, have come to the attention of those countries' security services, creating blackmail exposure 23. On China, MAD attributed at least some surveillance of military infrastructure, including drone overflights and intrusions onto Bundeswehr property, to Chinese intelligence services, which it said also draw on the Chinese diaspora 23. The report separately recorded 610 new extremism-related case reviews in 2025 versus 524 in 2024, with right-wing extremism cases rising from 413 to 519 3.

Analysis
MAD's report functions less as raw threat data than as a mandate-justifying document, the first published under the new law requiring annual disclosure, and its framing of Germany as a "prioritized target" will shape Bundeswehr counterintelligence budgeting and personnel vetting as force expansion continues. The withheld comparative sabotage figures limit independent verification of the claimed rise in low-level agent recruitment. Rising extremism caseloads, up sharply year over year and driven partly by the Zweibrücken paratrooper scandal, signal a parallel internal vetting burden distinct from the foreign espionage threat. Bundeswehr personnel travel to Russia and Belarus is a discrete blackmail exposure that creates pressure for new travel-disclosure policy.

4 sources

Jahresbericht MAD 2025: Schutz in Zeiten multipler Krisen - Bundeswehr (MAD)
German intelligence report warns of rising Russian, Chinese spy threat - DPA (via Yahoo News)
MAD: Bedrohung durch Sabotage hat "erheblich zugenommen" - t-online.de
German intelligence report warns of rising Chinese, Russian spy threat - South China Morning Post