Overview
- The Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) reports a sharper hybrid-threat environment and says sabotage by recruited 'low‑level agents' has 'significantly increased', citing threats such as drone overflights, intrusions and covert surveillance.
- MAD identifies Russia as prioritizing Germany for intelligence collection through legal residentures and press covers, and attributes some targeted espionage of military sites to Chinese services that exploit diaspora networks.
- The agency recorded a rise in case intakes to 610 in 2025 from 524 in 2024, with suspected right‑wing extremism cases climbing to 519 from 413, and points to incidents among parachute troops in Zweibrücken as a driver of the increase.
- MAD warns that Bundeswehr personnel who travel to Russia or Belarus risk exposure to local intelligence services, creating specific dangers of surveillance, blackmail and coercion for those individuals.
- As a response, MAD has grown its workforce to about 1,600 staff and is expanding its footprint at home while planning a permanent post in Lithuania to support Germany's NATO brigade deployment on the eastern flank.