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Item 1 of 3 August Hanning, state secretary at the German Interior Ministry and former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), attends a parliamentary committee of investigation in Berlin, Germany, November 30, 2006. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo

[1/3]August Hanning, state secretary at the German Interior Ministry and former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), attends a parliamentary committee of investigation in Berlin, Germany, November 30, 2006. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

BERLIN, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Former German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning was arrested ​on Tuesday on suspicion of attempted treason for allegedly paying to access secret ‌documents and using them to prepare an analysis for a foreign spy service, federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors did not identify the foreign intelligence service, and it was not immediately clear whether the analysis reached its intended recipient.

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“Hanning is strongly ​suspected of treasonous espionage, obtaining state secrets, attempted treason and espionage,” the prosecutor’s office said ​in a statement.

Five years after his seven-year tenure as head of the BND ⁠intelligence service ended in 2005, Hanning agreed with a former BND office manager to receive confidential ​intelligence information in exchange for payment, according to prosecutors.

The office manager, identified as Manfred D. in line ​with privacy rules, was also arrested on Tuesday and both were due to appear before a judge at the Federal Court of Justice.

‘NO COMPROMISES’

Prosecutors said D. is suspected of having supplied around 2,000 documents over the years, including ​classified material intended solely for internal use within the BND and senior-level intelligence briefings at the ​chancellery.

According to prosecutors, Hanning used classified information supplied by D. to prepare an analysis for an officer of a ‌foreign ⁠intelligence service and for years shared political information with a representative of the spy agency.

According to information obtained by the SZ newspaper, the case does not involve Russia.

BND President Martin Jaeger said the agency had launched extensive internal investigations as soon as suspicions emerged, adding that “there can be no compromises ​on internal security.”

Hanning did ​not respond to a ⁠request for comment from Reuters. The chancellery declined to comment.

PAST SPY SCANDALS

Hanning’s arrest is the latest in a series of notorious espionage scandals in Germany.

West ​German Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign in 1974 after it ​was revealed ⁠that an East German spy had worked as his close aide for nearly two years. In 1990, a senior West German counter-intelligence official was exposed for spying for East Germany throughout the 1980s and was ⁠later ​convicted of treason.

More recently, former domestic intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maassen ​said in 2024 he was now being monitored by the security agency he once ran over alleged right-wing political extremism, which ​he denied.

Adds quote from prosecutors’ statement in paragraph 3, BND statement in paragraph 9, background on past spy scandals in paragraph 11

Reporting by Friederike Heine, additional reporting by Andreas Rinke; editing by Linda Pasquini and Alexandra Hudson

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Police have arrested the former head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency, August Hanning, on suspicion of espionage, the federal prosecutor’s office announced Tuesday.

Hanning served as the agency’s chief from December 1998 to November 2005, before moving to the Federal Interior Ministry where he worked as state secretary until November 2009. 

According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office, he is facing charges including alleged espionage, disclosure of state secrets, attempted treason, and working as a secret service agent.

The statement added that another former high-ranking employee of the BND had also been arrested on suspicion of providing Hanning with hundreds of classified documents in exchange for payment.

DW’s chief political editor Michaela Küfner, reporting from a government press briefing on the arrest, described the case as Germany’s “biggest espionage scandal of the century unfolding in real time.”

Hanning’s alleged informant worked as chief of staff for multiple BND headsImage: Joko/picture alliance

What else do we know about the investigation?

Police arrested Hanning early Tuesday at his home in Nordwalde near the western German city of Münster, according to information from WDR, NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Hanning’s alleged accomplice, who was identified only as Manfred D. in line with Germany’s privacy laws, was taken into custody in Bavaria.

Authorities were conducting searches at both suspects’ properties, as well as in Berlin, the prosecutor said.

During Hanning’s tenure as spy head, D. served as his chief of staff. He also subsequently worked under Hanning at the Interior Ministry until 2009.

He is facing charges of “aiding and abetting attempted treason and espionage against the state.”

Marc Henrichmann, who chairs the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, said following the arrests that Germany “will not tolerate the betrayal of secrets.”

“Whoever allies themselves with the enemies of our liberal democracy will be found out,” he said in comments to the AFP news agency.

The investigation in Hanning reportedly began due to his connection to a high-profile trial involving businesswoman Christine Block.

2,000 documents allegedly handed over to Hanning

The prosector’s office said Hanning and Manfred D. are believed to have come up with their arrangement in 2010.

From 2012 to March 2026, D. served as chief of staff to Hanning’s successors at the BND spy agency, where he had access to a wealth of classified documents, according to the prosecutor’s statement.

“The current findings suggest that, over the years, Manfred D. provided Hanning with approximately 2,000 documents, many of which contained classified information to be used exclusively by the Federal Intelligence Service for internal purposes,” the statement said.

It added that D. is alleged to have provided Hanning with information until at least mid-2022, and that Hanning used that information in his private consulting work.

Hanning is also accused of being “in close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service, to whom he passed on political information, partially based on material provided by Manfred D., for several years,” the statement said.

The prosecutor’s office did not say which foreign intelligence service was involved.

The two suspects are expected to appear before an investigating judge on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has released a classified report to its workforce examining what it says are chapters from the bureau’s history “where this institution fell short,” according to an internal message obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

It was unclear what episodes from the FBI’s past are chronicled in the new “Patel Report.” But the document’s existence is in keeping with Director Kash Patel’s vocal criticism of the leaders who preceded him and with his determination to rid the FBI of agents he contends have politicized the bureau in the past. Patel’s critics say he is the one who has weaponized the FBI and that his scrutiny of his predecessors and their decision-making is part of an effort to rewrite history in favor of President Donald Trump.

READ MORE: 3 FBI agents fired over Trump investigation get broad backing in lawsuit against administration

Patel pledged at his confirmation hearing last year that he would not look “backward,” but as director, he has encouraged investigations of former senior officials and presided over sweeping terminations, including of employees who participated in years-old investigations of Trump, were photographed taking a knee during a 2020 racial justice protest and contributed to a disputed analytical memo about Catholic extremism.

“The Patel Report looks backward because accountability demands it,” says a message to the workforce signed by the FBI’s co-deputy directors, Christopher Raia and Andrew Bailey. The message describes the report as marking the “closing of one chapter in our history and the beginning of another complete with a brighter future ahead.”

Bailey announced his resignation earlier this week, and his last day is Friday. The FBI declined to comment on the report.

The message also says: “We cannot change what happened before we arrived. But we can confront it honestly. We can recognize failures instead of protecting them. We can hold people accountable. We can fix what was broken. And we can build safeguards strong enough to ensure the mistakes of the past are never allowed to define this institution again. These steps are consistent with any institution of excellence that is constantly striving for improvement.”

It was unclear if the report made recommendations or demanded any action to address what the FBI now regards as past shortcomings.

The FBI message says the report is meant to “promote fierce organizational accountability” and rebuild “public trust.” But Patel’s critics say the politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of Trump that the FBI has embarked on under his watch, as well as the punishment of agents who participated in investigations into the Republican president to which they were assigned, have eroded faith in the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the front lines this week to congratulate his troops on a counteroffensive that has reversed more than a year of Russian gains and thwarted Kremlin plans to encircle the strategically vital fortress belt cities of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. The success of Operation Vivaldi has showcased Ukraine’s mastery of drone warfare and confirmed the country’s continued ability to defeat the invading Russian army.

Beyond the battlefield, however, the outlook is far more favorable for the Kremlin. In recent months, it has become increasingly evident that Russia holds the upper hand in the air war against Ukraine. Putin now aims to exploit this advantage and break Ukrainian resistance by terrorizing the civilian population with a bombing campaign designed to disrupt every aspect of daily life and make much of the country unlivable.

Russia’s current dominance in the air reflects a number of converging factors. Since early 2026, Ukraine’s ability to protect against ballistic missile strikes has been severely eroded by the depletion of the country’s Patriot air defense interceptors. With Patriot interceptor stocks running low globally amid unprecedented usage during the US campaign against Iran, this has left Ukraine’s cities dangerously exposed to Russian ballistic missile attacks. The Kremlin is well aware of this vulnerability and has cranked up production while modifying its existing arsenal, leading to a series of record ballistic bombardments in recent months.

In parallel, Russia has also developed a new generation of jet drones that feature a range of upgraded performance characteristics and are more than two times faster than their propeller-driven predecessors, making them much more difficult to intercept. Ukrainian defense tech engineers are racing to develop solutions capable of countering the jet drone threat, but it may take months before suitable systems can be produced and deployed in sufficient quantities to neutralize Russia’s new terror weapon. In the meantime, dozens of deadly jet drones are penetrating Ukraine’s overstretched defenses and hitting targets across the country every single day.

Stay updated

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Russia’s current ascendancy in the air is transforming the security situation for Ukraine’s civilian population. Mounting ballistic missile strikes have led to a surge in the civilian death toll, with the number of people killed in July rising 70 percent compared to the previous year according to United Nations data. Meanwhile, relentless waves of daytime jet drone attacks are causing the breakdown of everyday life in Ukraine’s major cities with schools, offices, businesses, and public transport unable to operate.

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population are nothing new, of course. Ever since the first days of the full-scale invasion, Russian forces have routinely targeted civilian infrastructure, while tens of thousands of Ukrainian residents are thought to have been killed during the capture of Mariupol in the initial stages of the war. In each of the past four wartime winters, Moscow has attempted to freeze Ukrainians into submission by bombing the country’s power grid. Nevertheless, most observers agree that the current campaign is on a different scale altogether.

The Kremlin appears to have abandoned any attempt to disguise its terror tactics and is now openly striking a wide variety of civilian targets. In recent days, Russian jet drones have hit the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv along with hospitals, schools, supermarkets, fuel stations, internet data hubs, business centers, and repeated strikes on one of the busiest bridges across the Dnipro River.

These targets seem to have been selected specifically in order to create maximum disruption and foster an all-pervasive sense of insecurity among the civilian population. British journal The Economist has labeled Russia’s escalating attacks a “terror campaign” aimed at exhausting the Ukrainian public and crippling ordinary life in the capital city.

In parallel, the Kremlin is seeking to destroy Ukraine’s economic potential to continue the war. The endless air raid alarms sparked by round-the-clock jet drone attacks bring business to a halt and cost Ukraine approximately $45 million per hour. A series of Russian ballistic strikes in recent months have devastated the country’s economically vital steel industry, with numerous major metallurgical plants forced to cease operations. In the south, Russian airstrikes on port infrastructure and maritime traffic have also led to the shutdown of Ukraine’s main Black Sea ports, which have traditionally served as the key gateway for Ukrainian agricultural and industrial exports headed to global markets.

Putin has further underlined his intentions by targeting Ukraine’s railways and ordering airstrikes close to border crossings connecting the country to its European neighbors. Russian attacks on the Ukrainian rail network represent a twin threat to the civilian population and the Ukrainian economy, as most of Ukraine’s freight cargo is transported by train and millions of Ukrainians rely on the railway system for wartime travel.

Eurasia Center events

There are now fears that Russia’s terror bombing campaign will intensify significantly in the coming weeks. Ukrainian officials and analysts believe the Kremlin has stockpiled large quantities of ballistic missiles and jet drones, with plans in place for a dramatic increase in strikes as winter draws closer. Russia’s strategy includes unprecedented attacks on Ukraine’s power, heating, and water systems, according to the New York Times. The goal of this escalation will be to break Ukrainian morale and create the conditions for Kyiv’s capitulation.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian public have earned an unrivaled reputation for resilience. The coming winter will likely test this legendary endurance to the limit. As the cold season approaches, the country requires urgent international support to prevent a potential collapse.

Kyiv’s most pressing need is for more Patriot missile interceptors. With too few interceptors currently being produced, this means partner nations must dip into their own limited stockpiles if they wish to help defend Ukraine against Putin’s ballistic blitz. Additional funding and technological support are also required to scale up production of Ukrainian interceptors capable of nullifying Russia’s jet drones.

Crucially, Kyiv’s partners must find tens of billions of dollars to cover rapidly expanding gaps in the Ukrainian budget that could otherwise derail the war effort and set the stage for Russian victory. This is a particularly unpopular request at a time when many European countries are facing worsening domestic financial situations of their own, but failure to act could have disastrous consequences that would be felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine.

Putin’s current terror campaign is the latest signal that he has no interest in a compromise peace and intends to escalate his invasion. The Kremlin dictator remains determined to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and revive Russia’s superpower status. If he succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, his expansionist foreign policy will be vindicated and he will personally control the two most powerful armies in Europe. In such circumstances, it is delusional to think Putin will simply stop.

Russian control over Ukraine would dramatically undermine European security and necessitate a massive increase in defense spending that would dwarf the current cost of supporting Kyiv. It is therefore in Europe’s interests to dig deeper now and make sure the Ukrainians receive everything they need in order to survive the coming winter and continue defending themselves against Russia’s invasion.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Image: Ihor Malchevsky, 69, a deputy department head at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, tries to evacuate an administrative building hit by a Russian jet-powered drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 28, 2026. (REUTERS/Alina Smutko)

The bridges, used by many commuters in the Ukrainian capital, are the latest target in a broad Russian bombing campaign against infrastructure.

Russia’s new infrastructure target has become Ukraine’s bridges. It attacked six bridges in the country’s capital, Kyiv, over the past three days.CreditCredit…Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

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The charges against the Massachusetts man were not the first time the Miller family has raised concerns about its security.

Although authorities did not identify Proia’s target by name, describing her in a news release only as a “former political adviser and prominent member of the Republican Party,” two people familiar with the matter confirmed the alleged target was Katie Miller.

Prosecutors said Proia used an ever-changing series of phone numbers to contact Katie Miller at all hours, often using expletives and vulgar language to criticize her and her husband.

“The defendant repeatedly and relentlessly targeted the victim, her husband and her family with deeply disturbing communications that profoundly disrupted their lives,” said Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.

Proia was arrested Thursday by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and was released after an initial appearance in federal court. His attorney did not immediately return requests for comment.

Katie Miller thanked Foley, Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the FBI’s Washington field office in a post to social media about the arrest.

Proia’s indictment follows days of internal Justice Department debate over the case. Last week, the FBI transferred the top two agents running the counterterrorism division of its Washington field office over dissatisfaction with what higher-ups deemed to be the slow pace of their investigation into the threats against Katie Miller, The Washington Post has reported.

As President Donald Trump’s policies — including an immigration enforcement crackdown in which Stephen Miller has played a prominent role — have provoked fierce opposition across the country, the administration has prioritized prosecuting people who threaten public officials, federal agents and judges. Administration officials have pointed to recent high-profile incidents of political violence, like the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, to justify their heightened vigilance.

In some cases, those threats have prompted indisputably serious concerns from federal investigators that the perpetrator intends to commit an violent acts.

But in many others, defense attorneys have objected to the Justice Department’s decision to label threatening messages “domestic terrorism” and questioned its expanding definition of what constitutes a threat worthy of federal prosecution instead of one better left to local authorities.

Several defendants who have been charged in recent months are accused of little more than making vaguely menacing posts online, with little evidence to suggest they had any intent or ability to act on those alleged threats.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department charged former FBI director James B. Comey with threatening the president’s life after he posted a photo to social media depicting seashells spelling out “86 47.” Trump is the 47th president and “86” can mean to get rid of someone. Prosecutors say it is also mob slang for killing someone.

Comey maintains he did not create the shell arrangement and had no idea it could be read as a threat.

But unlike Comey and others who have been charged under a statute that prohibits communicating interstate threats — which requires prosecutors to prove the message contained a threat of injury or violence — Proia was indicted under a cyberstalking statute that requires only proof that the defendant intended to harass their victim and attempted to cause substantial emotional distress.

Prosecutors said Thursday that the relentless nature of Proia’s alleged communications instilled “real fear and harm.” In one message, cited by authorities, he purportedly contacted Katie Miller’s parents referring to Stephen Miller as a “Jewish Nazi/white supremacist.”

“Did you raise her to be trash or did that just happen naturally?” Proia allegedly texted them.

The Millers have emerged as frequent targets. Last year, the couple and their children moved to housing at a secure military facility, citing concern for their personal safety following protests in the Arlington neighborhood where they were previously residing.

Local activists posted fliers disclosing their home address and scrawled messages on sidewalks in chalk accusing Stephen Miller — the architect of controversial White House policies on immigration enforcement and domestic terrorism — of “destroying democracy.”

“If we don’t step up and start putting people in cuffs for these actions, what comes next?” Katie Miller asked in a Fox News interview shortly afterward.

In May, Virginia prosecutors declined to bring a case against Barbara Wien, a retired peace studies professor, who was involved in those protests, saying she was “not likely to be found guilty and her speech [was] likely to be found constitutionally protected.”

The FBI’s Washington field office was also involved in that investigation, but to date no federal charges have been filed.

Perry Stein contributed to this report.

In a video posted on social media, the assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, Brett Leatherman, vowed Tuesday to hunt down the members of a cybercriminal group going by the name of ShinyHunters, the same group that last week claimed to steal reams of sensitive data from the FBI itself.

“You know how to find us, and we know how to find you,” Leatherman said in the video, encouraging the prolific group of loosely connected data extortionists to come forward and share information or face the consequences. “I suggest you reach out first while the choice is still yours.”

The FBI says it is “aggressively” investigating the breach and how hackers got ahold of sensitive FBI employment information, including whether the hackers got into third-party software or the FBI’s own internal systems. In a statement emailed to NPR, a FBI spokesperson said the bureau is working “around the clock to investigate the cyber incident involving FBIJobs.gov and is in regular communication with anyone who may be impacted.”

It’s still unclear how much information was stolen, though media organizations and threat intelligence researchers have already verified the authenticity of some of the stolen materials. Meanwhile, a defacement message was posted on the FBI’s jobs website late last week where ShinyHunters took credit for the attack, and the site was temporarily taken down.

Current and former FBI employees familiar with the matter, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal for speaking about an ongoing investigation, said many employees first found out about the breach from media reports. They suggested there could be as many as several terabytes of text files in the data tranche, including FBI job applications, details on promotions, information on sensitive job postings, family details, medical data and more. Those same employees, particularly those who have retired, say there’s growing frustration with FBI leadership, including FBI Director Kash Patel, about the lack of communication about the breach, exactly who is impacted, and how the FBI plans to protect its current and former employees. Some retired employees who worked undercover might need protection services like relocation assistance or even name changes if their data is exposed publicly.

The FBI told NPR it sent multiple “bureau wide communications within 24 hours of public reporting” of the breach” and that “the FBI treats the security of its own information and the safety of its workforce as top priorities.”

One former senior FBI official told NPR the breach could be on par with the 2015 compromise of tens of millions of sensitive government employee records from the Office of Personnel Management. The U.S. government attributed that breach to the Chinese government and described it as a widespread espionage operation designed to identify potential targets for intelligence gathering.

However, unlike the OPM breach, there is more concern in this instance that the stolen materials will fall into the wrong hands or be otherwise weaponized, either by ShinyHunters or any number of criminal, terrorist, or nation-state organizations seeking to pilfer the stolen files. ShinyHunters has come out and said it never intended to leak the files, despite giving a deadline of Sept. 30 for the FBI to amend previously published press releases about the group that it argued were inaccurate, but that doesn’t necessarily prevent further theft or exploitation of the data.

The bureau and its former employees are “bracing for impact” and assume that the stolen materials may be irretrievably compromised, according to the former senior FBI official.

But experts argue that the ShinyHunters members, which many threat intelligence researchers have previously identified as a loose collective of young hackers around the world, should also brace themselves for the FBI’s response.

Cynthia Kaiser, the former FBI deputy director of the cyber division who currently leads ransomware research at cybersecurity company Halcyon, described the hackers as “reckless” for targeting the FBI, particularly knowing the FBI has a clear policy of not paying a ransom or negotiating with criminal actors. “When any threat actor targets the FBI directly, they should expect that the FBI is going to marshall additional resources to bring them quickly to justice,” she wrote in a social media post.

While the FBI has promised to seek the information to make arrests against ShinyHunters hackers in the wake of this breach, it’s unclear how imminent those actions might be.

The FBI’s video posted on social media also featured a recently announced arrest of one alleged member of ShinyHunters in Amsterdam by the Dutch National Police, an operation the FBI thanked its Dutch partners for leading. However, that arrest preceded the ShinyHunters theft of FBI personnel data, according to the former senior FBI official familiar with the matter. It’s unclear if that arrest served as motivation for the breach of FBI data and whether there was concern about potential retaliation following that arrest.

While the FBI has not shared any technical details about how the hackers got into its systems, Google’s Mandiant published new research revealing that ShinyHunters is currently targeting a vulnerability in a human resources software tool called PeopleSoft, which is owned by tech giant Oracle. PeopleSoft is a tool used by the FBI, among other major clients in IT services, corporations, government, academia and beyond.

Google originally disclosed information about the vulnerability and its exploitation in June and revealed that while the company released a patch, some customers instead implemented protections like a firewall to attempt to prevent bad actors from exploiting it. Ultimately, ShinyHunters has managed to easily bypass those controls.