Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office has charged 57-year-old Berlin businesswoman Ilona V., a citizen of Germany and Ukraine, with espionage activities in favor of Russia. The charge, based on a 74-page indictment, came almost eight months after her arrest.
The indictment does not concern espionage “in a particularly serious case”, which investigators initially examined: according to the case file, this suspicion was not confirmed. The agency claims that since November 2023, the entrepreneur had been passing information to a contact at the Russian embassy in Berlin.
German counterintelligence determined that this contact was GRU officer Andrey Mayorov, who worked under the cover of deputy military attaché and left Germany at the beginning of the year. Prosecutors also believe that Ilona V. collected information about participants in political meetings, including the NATO-Talk discussion at the “Adlon” hotel in Berlin in November 2023.
According to the prosecution, she also collected information about the German-Ukrainian economic forum in Berlin in December 2025, where she sat a few meters from Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition, in February 2024, the woman, under a fictitious name, brought Mayorov to a Bundeswehr reservists’ meeting.
The arrest of V. became known in January, and in the spring her defense, in a motion challenging the arrest, criticized the prosecution for a “broad interpretation” of the offense related to espionage on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. In Berlin, Ilona V. was considered a prominent figure: she headed an association for strengthening mutual understanding between peoples and appeared at receptions with ambassadors, diplomats, and politicians, while the organization’s board of trustees included entrepreneurs and former SPD and CDU members of parliament.
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