Berlin and London do not provide official comments.
The new head of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service) Martin Eger had a phone conversation with the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin. This was reported on the social network X (formerly Twitter) by the German television channel WDR.
According to their information, the conversation took place last week. Journalists noted that such direct contacts between the German and Russian sides are rare. The intelligence service itself declined to comment on the conversation. "BND fundamentally does not provide public comments regarding issues related to intelligence activities," the agency stated.
Eger is not the only head of a Western intelligence service with whom Naryshkin has negotiated in December. As the head of the SVR noted, he also had a "rather lengthy phone conversation" with the new head of the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6, Blaze Metreveli. In a published interview with TASS, Naryshkin stated that the conversation took place "a few days ago."
Martin Eger became the head of BND in mid-September; prior to that, he had been Germany's ambassador to Kyiv since 2023. As head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, Eger succeeded Bruno Kahl, who held the position since 2016.
Kahl, during his tenure as head of BND, expressed concerns that Russia would be able to attack NATO "at the latest by the end of this decade." "We are in direct confrontation with Russia," Kahl said in the fall of 2024. The Kremlin then rejected claims of a threat of Russian aggression against NATO.
After his speech at the meeting of the Security Council of Russia regarding the recognition of the DPR and LPR on February 21, 2022, Naryshkin attracted widespread attention from the global press for noticeably trembling and "awkwardly stuttering" when Putin publicly reprimanded him for his "awkward" response to the president's question about the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.
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