Germany Seen Crawling with Russian Spies

About 130 Russian spies are currently undercover in Germany, almost as many as were deployed there by the

KGB during the Cold War, according to the latest edition of the German news magazine Focus. German political parties, companies, the armed forces and scientific research establishments were targeted by post-communist

Russian espionage, said the report quoting German authorities. The article, released in advance of Monday's ediiton, quoted an official of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Agency (BKA) as saying these targets were spied on "in an extremely aggressive way." It also quoted an unnamed senior official of Germany's domestic counter-intelligence service as saying Russian intelligence had been

strongly reinforced of late, so that almost as many operatives were now undercover on German territory as there were Soviet KGB agents there during the Cold War. Russian-German relations are generally perceived as being cordial. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian President Vladimir Putin have strengthened friendly links between the two countries. The leaders speak German together, a language Putin learned as a KGB agent based in Dresden in former East Germany during the Cold War. (AFP)