Germany confirms ambassador to Ukraine will head foreign intelligence

German Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Jaeger will become the new president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

This information was confirmed by deputy government spokesman Steffen Meyer, Spiegel reports.

Martin Jaeger has had considerable experience in working with intelligence services in recent years, both in Berlin and in crisis regions around the world. He worked at the Foreign Ministry, was press secretary to Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and in 2013 became ambassador to Afghanistan. He later served as ambassador to Iraq (from 2021 in Baghdad). Since July 2023, he has been Germanyʼs ambassador to Ukraine. It is not yet known when Jaeger will take up his new duties.

His predecessor as intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, 62, will become Germanyʼs representative to the Holy See in Rome. Kahl had long sought a move to the Vatican.

During his eight years in office, he has endured several high-profile scandals. He and his agents have been repeatedly criticized in the press. In 2021, for example, he was accused of underestimating the threat of a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.

The following year, foreign intelligence agencies criticized the BND for not warning the German government strongly enough about a Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the same year, a BND agent was exposed for passing classified German intelligence data to Russian intelligence services.

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