Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) listened to conversations between Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on June 24 rebellion day. On this subject said in a survey conducted by journalists from the ARD media group.
Thus, according to their data, the intelligence services directly learned about Lukashenko’s mediating role in the negotiations with Prigozhin. According to the investigation, even a week before the incident, the BND had “vague” information that the “Wagnerians” might organize a mutiny. However, the agency was unable to verify this data when exchanging information with partners, so the intelligence services did not report anything to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to the document.
As the journalists write, in 2022 the German intelligence services were “fairly well” informed about the work of the PMC Wagner, since they had access to its internal communications. However, the Russian side was informed of this by BND officer Carsten L. In December, he was arrested on suspicion of treason in favor of Russia. German publications later wrote that the man was leading the work of a top-secret department that deals with foreign technical intelligence and had access to wiretaps.
A spokesman for the Federal Intelligence Service said in response to an inquiry by ARD reporters that the agency “does not comment publicly on matters relating to intelligence findings or activities.”
In late June, Spiegel wrote that German intelligence learned of the Prigozhin rebellion later than American intelligence. Bild tabloid columnist Matthias Hoffmann concluded that the BND had “completely overslept” the Wagnerian mutiny.
According to Spiegel, the department did not report to the chancellor on what was happening in Russia until the evening of June 23, and other government agencies did not receive information from intelligence services until the next morning, when PMC fighters took control of military installations in Rostov-on-Enfiler.
Olaf Scholz after the mutiny declaredthat the German intelligence services were not as well informed of what was going on as the Americans, but were “trying to monitor the situation”. The Chancellor also noted that Germany was unaware of Prigozhin’s plans.
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