»Of course the West will rely on the so-called fifth column: on traitors.
To those who earn their living here but live in the west.«
As early as March 19, 2022, Vladimir Putin made it clear in a speech to the Russians that he was also waging war against the allegedly corrosive influence of the Western way of life.
This speech became known primarily through Putin's statement that the "Russian people" would spit out such traitors "like insects".
What is not known is whether the Russian President also meant his own daughter Katerina Tikhonova and her alleged partner Igor Zelensky.
“This story is so important for Russia because it concerns the public statements made by the Russian authorities.
Especially after the start of the war in Ukraine, they see anyone who shows a Western mentality in Russia as a traitor," explains Roman Anin from the Russian investigative portal "I-Stories" in the podcast.
»If you look at the life that Igor Selensky lived in Munich, the trips he made with Katharina Tikhonova, then it was a typical Western way of life.
So when Putin calls Russians with a Western mentality and way of life national traitors, he also calls his daughter a national traitor.”
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However, this possible double standard applies only to the Russian side of this story.
On the German side, what is striking is how little the authorities knew about Katerina Tikhonova's visits, who regularly traveled to Germany, apparently accompanied by armed bodyguards.
“She traveled partly on Aeroflot flights from Moscow to Munich.
That means she must have shown her passport.
The authorities must have noticed that she entered and left the country,” says investigative journalist Maria Christoph.
»And one could perhaps have questioned that: why were these trips undertaken?
Some other people were also on board, of whom we don't know exactly: Are they just friends or was there actually some kind of mission?
Officially, Katerina Tikhonova does not carry out any political tasks for Russia.
There was no official reason for surveillance.
Nevertheless, ignorance of their travels represents a security risk. For both sides.
“Of course, the Bavarian police would have been very interested in knowing that Ms. Tikhonowa was often in Munich and at Lake Tegernsee.
Because of course there is also a particular danger for her, otherwise she would not have been accompanied by her bodyguards," says Jörg Diehl, who coordinated SPIEGEL's research with German authorities.
»You can now say in retrospect: Everything went well, fortunately.
But you can't imagine what would have happened if it had gone wrong.
In this respect, this gap in the German security architecture, which we found in the research, is actually alarming.«
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