German Prosecutors Charge German-Ukrainian Woman With Spying for Russian Embassy Intelligence Officer

Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office charged a 57-year-old German-Ukrainian woman, identified only as Ilona W. under German privacy rules, with acting as an intelligence agent for Russia, filing the indictment at the Berlin Kammergericht on September 6 12. Prosecutors allege she was in contact with a full-time intelligence officer at the Russian Embassy in Berlin from at least October 2023, supplying him with tips on high-profile events and enabling his attendance, at times under a false name, to help him build his own intelligence network 123. She also allegedly sought to recruit contacts within the German Defense Ministry and defense industry and gathered information on German defense policy at the officer's request 12. She ran a Berlin marketing agency and chaired a lobbying group, was arrested on January 22, and has remained in pretrial detention since. German authorities separately expelled a Russian Embassy staffer, identified by dpa as the deputy military attaché, on espionage grounds, prompting Moscow to expel a German diplomat in response 234.