The Russia affair in the Swiss secret service: 'This is espionage' 

Employees of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) have been cooperating with Russian contacts for years. Highly sensitive data apparently flowed out – and ended up with Russian intelligence services. The affair centres on the FIS cyber team – and a collaboration with the controversial software company Kaspersky. Research by SRF Investigativ shows that when friendly intelligence services threatened to end cooperation, the Swiss intelligence service reacted. November 3, 2020. Geneva is unusually silent. With restaurants closed and few passers-by, a second Covid lockdown has brought life almost to a standstill. But somewhere in this quiet metropolis two intelligence services meet: the top officials of the FIS and a friendly foreign intelligence service. Switzerland is facing a debacle. The issue, as the FIS itself will later state in a secret report, is accusations of “illegal transfer of data”. According to the report, a Swiss secret service employee – we’ll call him W. – had ...