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The intersection of Russia, the September 11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Alexander Litvinenko, and Konstantin Borovoi involves allegations and historical contexts regarding intelligence links, counterterrorism cooperation, and controversial claims about early Russian contact with al-Qaeda figures.

Ayman al-Zawahiri

Role in 9/11: Ayman al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian militant physician and the co-founder/leader of al-Qaeda who served as Osama bin Laden's chief deputy and a primary orchestrator of the September 11 attacks.
Alleged 1997 Russia Visit: In claims later publicized by defectors and critics of the Kremlin, Zawahiri allegedly traveled to Dagestan (in the North Caucasus region of Russia) in late 1996 or 1997, where he was briefly detained by Russian authorities before being released.

Background & Claims: Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who defected to the United Kingdom.
Zawahiri Allegation: In his writings and accusations after fleeing Russia, Litvinenko alleged that the FSB had prior contact with or managed to shield Ayman al-Zawahiri during Zawahiri's reported 1997 arrest and release in Dagestan, claiming FSB involvement with radical Islamist networks. Mainstream historians and official Russian denials rejected these claims as part of Litvinenko’s broader anti-Kremlin campaign.
Assassination: Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium-210 in London in November 2006, with British inquiries concluding the assassination was carried out by Russian agents on state orders.

• Background: Konstantin Borovoi is a liberal Russian politician, entrepreneur, and former member of the Russian State Duma (1995–2000).
Connection to the Narrative: Borovoi was part of the Russian political opposition in the late 1990s and has publicly discussed or interacted with various intelligence leaks and political controversies of the Yeltsin and early Putin eras. His name surfaces in discussions regarding the political opposition's efforts to expose covert actions or security service missteps surrounding the North Caucasus and Islamist militant movements prior to the 1999 apartment bombings and 9/11.

Diplomatic Response: Immediately following the September 11 attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin reached out to U.S. President George W. Bush, offering intelligence sharing and permitting U.S. military access to bases in Central Asia for the invasion of Afghanistan.
Divergence: While Putin used the post-9/11 atmosphere to align rhetorically with Western counterterrorism—specifically to draw international focus toward Chechen separatists—Moscow and Washington quickly diverged over the U.S. invasion of Iraq and broader geopolitical influence in the former Soviet sphere.

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Vladimir Putin’s image as a political "mastermind" is largely a carefully cultivated public relations persona rather than an accurate reflection of strategic omnipotence.

The Mastermind Myth vs. Reality

Cultivated Persona: Analysts like Andrew Weiss (author of Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin) note that the West often frames Putin as a chess-playing villain, playing directly into the tough-guy mystique he and his state-run media spend decades building.
KGB Roots: Rising from a mid-level KGB officer to the presidency in 1999, Putin relies heavily on tradecraft, intimidation, and informational control rather than infallible long-term planning.
Strategic Blunders: The full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed severe miscalculations, leading to massive Russian casualties, deep economic and technological isolation, domestic fuel pressures, and a heavy toll on Russia's standing.

Centralized Power: Putin systematically brought oligarchs under state dominance, crushed independent media, and eliminated domestic political rivals.
Grievance and Paranoia: Shaped by his intelligence background and resentment over the collapse of the Soviet Union, he views Western democracy and NATO expansion as direct threats to Russian survival.
Regime Preservation: Like many authoritarian leaders, his primary mechanism is maintaining a tight grip on internal security, managing elite factions by keeping them divided, and relying on a loyal inner circle.

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For the BND, the case comes at an uncomfortable moment. Just last week, German parliamentarians began debating a new law proposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to grant the agency sweeping new authority, as part of an effort to return Berlin’s foreign intelligence service to the top ranks of global espionage. The timing is equally awkward for European intelligence more broadly. With Russian hybrid attacks continuously targeting Europe, governments across the bloc are rewriting decades-old security laws to give their spy agencies greater powers and be taken more seriously.

Prosecutors say Hanning’s former chief of staff, identified under German privacy rules as Manfred D., supplied him with roughly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and June 2022. Many contained classified information intended exclusively for internal intelligence work, including material used to brief senior German officials.

In comments to German newspaper WELT, a lawyer representing Hanning said some of the allegations against the ex-spymaster were true but that he did not harm Germany.

“He was in possession of confidential documents. Incorrect, however, is the accusation that he had passed on information contained therein to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany — let alone [for] payment. Further investigations will show that,” he said.

In one case, prosecutors suspect Hanning used classified material to prepare an analysis for an employee of foreign intelligence service. They also allege he maintained a relationship with a representative of another foreign intelligence service for several years, passing along political information that was partly based on material obtained from Manfred D.

Prosecutors have not publicly identified either foreign service but German media has named Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan has denied any connection.

“In intelligence services, everything is logged — who accesses which documents and when. If an analyst working on right-wing extremism suddenly started looking at intelligence on China, that would raise red flags. But the position of chief of staff has access to virtually everything, so it wouldn’t look suspicious because of the seniority of the position,” said a second EU intelligence official.

Chiefs of staff often stay on when directors change, unless they don’t get along with the incoming boss, the official added.

“Every intelligence service will now be looking at what information it shared with the BND and assessing what damage may have been done,” he said.

Revolving door

Hanning led the BND from 1998 to 2005, before serving as state secretary at Germany’s interior ministry until 2009. Once out of government, he wasted little time entering the private sector.

In July 2010, Hanning and his wife established Hanning Consult. It was in the spring of that same year that Manfred D. agreed to provide him with intelligence from inside the BND in exchange for payment, according to the prosecutor’s statement. Hanning then used that information in his private consulting activities, they added.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a Christian Democrat lawmaker on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament, said that within Germany there is a “very widespread network” of people who use the contacts and knowledge acquired while they were in service to influence Berlin’s policy on behalf of foreign governments like Russia and China.

“It’s not only sad, it’s damaging the reputation of Germany,” Kiesewetter told POLITICO. “You could also say if you want to talk to Russia, take former members of the government or former members of the secret services.”

Hanning also became involved with Samuel Danilowitsch, a German businessman, who led the Swiss corporate intelligence consultancy, Pluteos. There, Hanning eventually became chairman and the two were listed as attending a 2019 Moscow gathering focused on Europe-Russia relations, attended by Russian political and business figures, where the annexation of Crimea was brought up as a “necessity” rather than a choice. Pluteos did not respond to a request for comment.

From around 2014, Hanning joined British consultancy G3 as a senior adviser, according to archived web pages seen by POLITICO. He later oversaw its work involving Russia and the former Soviet republics, according to German media outlet Correctiv. G3 did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2019, Hanning was invited as a “guest of honor” to a gathering organized by Russia’s Security Council of officials and experts from Arctic Council countries. It was chaired by former secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, one of the most powerful figures in President Vladimir Putin’s security orbit. As part of the cultural program, the group visited the remote Valaam Island monastery where Hanning was pictured next to Patrushev.

Hanning has also publicly ventured into some of the more politically explosive questions surrounding Russia’s war on Ukraine.

In 2024, he told WELT TV that he considered it “very likely” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew about the 2022 operation that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines. Days later, Hanning went further, suggesting an agreement between senior Ukrainian and Polish figures was behind the attack. Germany has since charged a Ukrainian national it identified only as Serhii K., with his trial due to begin in Hamburg in October.

None of those business relationships, contacts or statements establishes a connection to the espionage case now facing Hanning, though they paint a picture of the influence he continued to amass after leaving the German government. Prosecutors have not accused him of spying for Russia.

The steakhouse heiress

Investigators got onto Hanning’s trail starting with an extraordinary custody dispute involving Christina Block, an heiress to a German steakhouse empire.

Block is accused by the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office of orchestrating the abduction of her two youngest children from their father in Denmark. Prosecutors in that case say Block and two men commissioned an Israeli security team to seize her children, then aged 10 and 13, from their father, Stephan Hensel.

According to the indictment, masked men beat Hensel and took the children across the Danish-German border, to southern Germany. The children were reunited with their father in Denmark four days later, under a court order. Block denies knowing about the abduction.

In September 2025, Hamburg investigators searched Hanning’s home and business premises in connection with the Block case, according to local media. Prosecutors suspected Hanning and a retired police officer had accepted a contract worth more than €100,000 to intercept the children on their way to school in November 2022. The plan ultimately failed as their father noticed suspicious figures and alerted Danish police. 

German broadcaster Taggeschau reported that the investigators, in the search of Hanning’s premises, discovered around 2,000 digital BND documents that ultimately triggered scrutiny of his handling of sensitive government information. Federal prosecutors took over the resulting investigation in May 2026.

Manfred D. had been Hanning’s chief of staff at the intelligence service and subsequently served several of Hanning’s successors, remaining in a senior position until March this year. 

Both men are now in custody.

“He’s reflecting the Germany between 1998 and 2011, so he has not the feeling of having done something evil,” said Kiesewetter. “He was just mirroring [the] state policy of the center-right Christian Democratic and conservative political alliance.”

Hans von der Burchard contributed to this report.