Russia's Espionage Networks in Germany

[Music] foreign welcome to the European resilience initiative Center video podcast today our guest is Natalie Vogel she is a research fellow at the center for intermarine studies of The Institute of world politics in Washington DC and she specializes in the study of intelligence response to hybrid rats she is a German French national she served the German

bundeswear and she started the Russian operations on destabilizing and hybrid hybrid Warfare I believe you did it even before this uh this Wars hybrid Warfare was popular in Europe right indeed hello and thank you for having me on your show I'm a great fan uh yes I specialized on in that field at times

where nobody was interested in in that topic and if you were to be asked uh what are you doing for a living and if you were to give some specific answers then the people would stare at you and think you got stuck in the Cold War and you were obsessing and you are barking

the wrong tree and you are obsessing with a topic that is not relevant you we go like to these to this topic of Russian uh hybrid threats and Russian intelligence operations to with in order to destabilize our political systems our societies uh what biggest operations can you name are how how does it work

you know what we were actually discussing this uh not long ago in the framework of a conference and I've been asked this very question in my view the most successful operation in Europe was the cooperation of entire political parties and the cultivation of prominent head of governments I would name Schroeder but this this is a wrong tradition

Russian intelligence has been spotting cultivating and even helping politicians uh to gain power in Europe it's nothing new um and um I would I would probably yes name the case of of gehardt as the most successful operation um what do you elaborate uh like you think that the Russians they believe that Ruther could uh like a good