State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office Miguel Berger invited Sergey J. Nechajev, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, to the Federal Foreign Office for talks today. On behalf of the Federal Government, Mr Berger condemned the hacker attack on the German Bundestag in the strongest possible terms.

The Russian Ambassador was informed, with reference to the arrest warrant issued by the Investigating Magistrate of the Federal Court of Justice at the request of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office on 29 April 2020 against Russian national Dmitri Badin, that the Federal Government will call in Brussels for the EU’s cyber sanctions regime to be invoked with respect to those responsible for the attack on the German Bundestag, including Mr Badin.

The arrest warrant against Mr Badin was issued on the basis of the strong suspicion that the accused conspired with other hitherto anonymous persons to carry out intelligence activities against the Federal Republic of Germany on behalf of the secret service of a foreign power. The accused is strongly suspected of being responsible as a member of APT28 group for the hacker attack on the German Bundestag in April/May 2015. There is credible evidence that he was a member of the GRU military intelligence service at the time of the attack.

The Federal Government is assessing this incident also in the light of the ongoing investigation into the Tiergarten murder case and expressly reserves the right to take further measures.