Savings planned in Germany by Russia? Authorities check information

After several alleged attacks in Germany last year, security authorities follow possible information after targeted control from abroad. To do this, “checks” were now going that the clues “were taken very seriously,” said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior on Monday in Berlin.

Previously, the ZDF had reported on possible Russian influence or participation, including the knife attack by Mannheim from May 2024.

The ministry spokesman continued that the investigation into individual attacks is “very precisely checked” whether there was “financing” or “control” in the background. According to the previous state of knowledge, there is “no clear indications”. He could not comment on specific investigations anyway.

The SPD interior expert Dirk Wiese spoke of a “very striking accumulation” of attacks before the Bundestag election. “Russia’s complications are anything but excluded here,” he told the Funke newspapers on Tuesday. It must be determined in all directions.

The ZDF reported on Sunday about suspicious Internet searches from Russia in the run-up to attacks last year and also made connections to election dates. In addition to the attack by Mannheim at the end of May, there were also abnormalities shortly before the European elections with a killed police officer in the case of the fire in the DHL air freight center at Leipzig Airport in July. A state parliament election took place in Saxony a few weeks later.

“Splight searches from Russia and digital Russian traces in the run-up to the acts can be an indication of this,” the SPD politician Wiese told the Funke newspapers.

“I think it is completely obvious that these digital traces and the evaluation and analysis of these digital traces can be an important building block to get closer to the truth, and in this respect you should involve this,” said the Green politician Konstantin von Notz. “The compression before the elections is evident.”