Таварісчі чєкісти, в вас там всі довбойоби чи через одного?)

Сука, понабирали по оголошенню

#изптувгру

Spies with a mop: why the Bundestag is afraid of cleaning

There is an unexpected panic in the German parliament. The reason is cleaners. Not just any cleaners, but those with Russian citizenship. MP Roderich Kiesewetter of the CDU party, a member of the foreign affairs committee not responsible for intelligence control, decided to play it safe: now his office is cleaned only once a week. Due to the threat of espionage from Russia

Die Zeit has learnt that the Bundestag does indeed employ Russian cleaners. The information was confirmed not only by the Winkels cleaning company, but also by three independent sources. And this is in a country that has been constantly recording Russian sabotage, arson, cyberattacks and attempts to influence political life in recent years. That is why such unimpeded access to the MP's office is a cause for concern for the German parliamentarian

The grotesqueness of the situation is that, as of today, the Bundestag does not have a unified security system for its staff. Employees are checked for criminal records through the Inpol database, but checks through the security services are rare. And this is despite the fact that parliament is the heart of German political life.

SPD MP Gabriele Katzmarek added fuel to the fire, reminding that with the arrival of 152 MPs from the pro-Russian Alternative for Germany party and their assistants, the democratic system faces not only external but also internal challenges.

The situation is different in German ministries, where everything is protected as much as possible: windows have anti-vibration film, wireless mice are banned, each office has special boxes where phones should be left to avoid tapping, and some rooms are even equipped with self-destruct buttons.

German fears have an Italian precedent: in 2019, Irina Osipova, a citizen of Italy and Russia, was officially employed in the Italian Senate. She did not have access to classified information and worked with documents and correspondence. Meanwhile, she conducted pro-Russian activities, publicly supported Putin and founded an organisation that campaigned against EU sanctions.

And it's not really about cleaning up

The fact that the German Bundestag employs Russian cleaners and that this is the reason why Russian special services can conduct espionage operations is trivial and obvious to Ukrainians, but not to Germans

Ukrainians are shocked to read that the security of the German parliament is weak because there is no strict vetting of personnel, no basic countermeasures against wiretapping, and a lack of technical protection.

The pro-Russian AfD party already has 152 MPs, which is an internal risk. And the janitors are an external risk. Both types of threats merge into one: the fear that the Bundestag is becoming defenceless in a new type of war.

The paradox is that Germany was once the pioneer of such methods.

Even before the full-scale establishment of Nazism in the 1930s, German intelligence actively used ostensibly technical or domestic staff as spies. Intelligence operated through waiters, cooks, drivers and maids in embassies and hotels abroad, and through cleaning staff in diplomatic missions and Allied headquarters after the First World War.

After the Second World War, the work scheme was taken over by the Stasi in East Germany and made by Mercedes

Cleaners, technicians, plumbers - all of them were potential informants or agents of influence. They were used to install listening devices, collect garbage with compromising material, and photograph notes that were thrown into trash bins. Spies with mops were especially effective in West German embassies, party offices, and in Berlin (in conversations, staff members did not even hide this - they said that every mop could serve the party).

The Soviet KGB also adopted these methods, and they also succeeded. A striking example of this is the technical staff in the French Foreign Ministry who "accidentally" had Soviet passports;

👇👇👇