Operation hammer
Putin's hunt for Viennese politicians, police officers and reporters
Investigation files reveal the biggest espionage affair of the Second Republic: On behalf of the Kremlin, Putin's henchmen in Austria pursued not only the Viennese ÖVP party chairman, but also the editor of profil, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and an investigative reporter. One officer even revealed the personal data of more than 36,000 police officers to a suspected Russian spy
from
FALTER 12/2025, 18.03.2025
Word translation of the original article in German:
https://www.falter.at/zeitung/20250318/putins-jagd-auf-wiener-politiker-polizisten-und-reporter
Illustration: PM Hoffmann
A secret service chief, an Austrian investigative journalist, a party chairman, an internationally active researcher: spied on, hunted and – in one case – even threatened with murder. And all this in Vienna, with the help of Russian spies, Bulgarian would-be agents and Austrian officials with close ties to the FPÖ. This is the content of an investigation file that comprises more than 10,000 pages and tells a dark story. A history with many names and places, a story that shakes the foundations of the republic. And it seems so confused that you almost don't know where to start telling it.
Vienna, Rennweg
Perhaps here: In a massive barracks on Vienna's Rennweg, in a high-security wing, well guarded and undisturbed by listening devices, sits the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution: the Directorate of State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN). In a sober meeting room, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner has taken a seat for a background discussion. He is the country's top intelligence officer, the director of the DSN. He will get rid of something fundamental that allows only one conclusion: the Republic of Austria is threatened. Quite massively. And he, Haijawi-Pirchner, was also targeted by the Russians.
DSN chief Omar Haijawi-Pirchner: Russian intelligence agents wanted to steal his cell phone and that of his colleaguesPhoto: APA/Alex Halada
Haijawi-Pirchner takes his time, clarifies, he wants to provide the public with a "bigger picture" about the current situation. It is no longer a suspicion, but a certainty: The Russian ruler Vladimir Putin is involved in Vienna, he sends his spies and murder squads. He presumably bought civil servants through intermediaries.
Haijawi-Pirchner and some of his officials were observed by Putin's henchmen "because they wanted to steal our data carriers," he says. A group of agents, originating from Bulgaria and recruited and paid by the Russian secret service, has just been convicted in London of espionage and a murder plot. Her immediate client was the fugitive alleged Wirecard billionaire fraudster Jan Marsalek, an Austrian who works as a secret service agent in Russia.
Austria's top intelligence officer Haijawi-Pirchner, deployed in 2021 to modernize the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which was attacked after a scandalous raid under FPÖ Interior Minister Herber Kickl, not only investigates Islamists, right-wing and left-wing extremists, he and his team also fend off espionage from Russia and attacks by Russia's agents on the republic or the lives of citizens living here.
Left: Falter cover of "Putin's helpers on the invisible front" from 2024: The Falter published names of spies who spied on Austria. Then some of them were thrown out of Vienna. Right: A year ago, the Falter uncovered the links between BVT officials and FPÖ politicians and Russia's regime. A dossier by an insider described how diplomats infiltrated the stateScreenshots: FALTER
The top policeman himself became the target of a Bulgarian cell directed from Russia, which spied in Vienna, was supported by allegedly corrupt Viennese officials and – at least that's what you read in relevant chats of the agents – was apparently on the verge of carrying out a murder on behalf of Vladimir Putin.
People wanted Haijawi-Pirchner's cell phone, just as they had already stolen the data of the iPhone of the head of cabinet in the Ministry of the Interior and brought it to Russia. "But they didn't get close enough to me," he says. His private paths and whereabouts had been scouted. But the agents weren't good enough.
In Austria, tens of thousands of pages of investigation files, chat logs and court documents that a Falter research team was able to view show, Russian spies are shadowing or shadowing representatives of the state, politics and the media. They can also rely on FPÖ politicians who work for them – with bad intentions, out of offended vanity or out of naivety. They are people who worked in the cabinet of party leader Herbert Kickl, so they are very close to the almost People's Chancellor, and were even taken into the closest confidence by him.
And so the case perhaps also shows why a coalition with Kickl was so energetically rejected by ex-chancellor (and ex-interior minister) Karl Nehammer that he handed in his resignation instead of letting the Freedom Party and its Putin trivializers back into power.
Kickl's loyalists, such as former MP Hans-Jörg Jenewein, illegally had sensitive data sent to them from the minister's office during his 2018-2019 term of office, and they hoarded USB sticks with highly explosive data sets at home, such as an electronic directory with the names, addresses and personal data of 36,000 police officers, which had been leaked by an official from the interior ministry. For what? The security authorities in Austria suspect that this directory could also have ended up in Russia. Like the cell phone of Michael Kloibmüller, the former head of cabinet of the Ministry of the Interior.
Not only top police officers like Haijawi-Pirchner are in the Russians' sights, but also top politicians and declared opponents of Putin. Men like Karl Mahrer.
Vienna, Lichtenfelsgasse
Here is the second stop in this complex story. Behind the parliament building in Vienna at Lichtenfelsgasse 7 is the barely secured headquarters of the Austrian People's Party. Karl Mahrer receives the Falter in his bright office, he is the former state police commander of Vienna, today the top candidate of the People's Party for the federal capital. This is also the first time he has spoken about this Russian espionage operation against him.
ÖVP top politician Mahrer: as a member of the Interior Committee in the sights of Russian spiesPhoto: Christopher Mavrič
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It is February 13 when we meet him for this research. A hectic day.
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