Germany yesterday accused Russia of cyberattacks targeting its air traffic control and February's general election, and said it had summoned the Russian ambassador to protest.

A foreign ministry spokesman said German security services had proof that hacker groups run by Russia's military intelligence service GRU were responsible for the attacks and influence operations.

"Based on comprehensive analysis by the German intelligence services, we have been able to clearly identify the handwriting behind it and prove Moscow's responsibility," said the spokesman.

"We can now clearly attribute the cyberattack against German Air Safety in August 2024 to the hacker collective APT28, also known as Fancy Bear," he told a regular press briefing.

He also said Russia had sought to influence February's parliamentary election, which was won by the conservatives of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with the far-right AfD scoring its best-ever result in second place.