German counterintelligence confirms it is questioning Russians at Berlin airport, citing a ‘high threat level’

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country’s domestic intelligence agency, confirmed to iStories and Deutsche Welle that it is questioning Russians at Berlin’s airport.

The agency said the threats facing Germany are “documented in considerable detail and remain highly fluid,” so it is “constantly adapting its measures to the persistently high threat level.” It said it conducts various measures, which “include questioning people,” within its legal authority.

IStories also asked Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) about reports that someone had tried to recruit one of the Russian women stopped for questioning at Berlin’s airport and that she was later barred from entering the Schengen Area.

The BND declined to comment, saying it reports “on the relevant matters” to the government and the Bundestag bodies responsible for overseeing it.

In early November, Kholod reported that Russian citizens had been invited to “voluntary” interviews at Berlin’s airport since September. They were asked about the situation in Russia, mobilization, and rising prices. Airport staff approached Russians after passport control and took them to separate rooms for questioning. But the Russians were told these “interviews” were voluntary only during the questioning or afterward.

Andrei Pivovarov, a politician and former political prisoner, said that after one such interview at Berlin’s airport, a Russian woman who had arrived on a tourist visa was asked to sign an agreement to cooperate with German intelligence. She refused and was later barred from entering Schengen countries.

German authorities said in September that they planned to tighten entry checks on Russians. This followed reports from authorities of an attempted sabotage targeting a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport. Berlin blamed Moscow, which denies the allegations.