German ex-reserve officer sentenced over spying for Russia

BERLIN

A German court on Friday sentenced a former military reserve officer to a suspended prison sentence over spying for Russia.

The Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court found Ralph G. guilty of passing information about Germany, the armed forces, and its high-ranking officers to a Russian intelligence service between the years 2014 and 2020.

The 66-year-old was given a suspended prison sentence of one year and nine months.

During the trial, Ralph G. rejected the accusation that he carried out spying activities for Russia’s GRU and claimed that he did not know the people he met were Russian spies. He also stressed that his Russian wife has been an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies.

The prosecutors alleged that the former lt. colonel of the military reserve had shared sensitive information about the German armed forces and its high-ranking officers with Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

He was also accused of writing reports for them, on the economy, especially about the Western sanctions on Russia, and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

The former army reservist argued that all these were based on publicly accessible open sources, and did not include any secret information.