Andreas von Beckerath

On August 28, 2026, Andreas von Beckerath was named to head Sweden’s newly created Foreign Intelligence Service (Sveriges utrikes underrättelsetjänst, UND). The agency itself won’t begin operations until January 1, 2027.

Andreas von Beckerath is officially presented as a career diplomat. In fact, he started out his career in the Military Intelligence and Security Service (Militäraunderrättelse-ochsäkerhetstjänsten, Must) of Sweden’s Ministry of Defense. For a long stretch he worked under diplomatic cover, holding various posts at Swedish embassies.

In 1996, at the age of 26, Andreas von Beckerath graduated from Uppsala Universitet, where alongside studying economics he trained as a military translator from Russian. He later sharpened his Russian at courses run by the St. Petersburg State Economic University.

After finishing his studies, the military intelligence officer von Beckerath did an internship in Kyiv and worked at the English First language courses in Moscow. Starting in 1999, he worked under the cover of positions at Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as second secretary at Sweden’s embassy in Romania in 2001-2002, at Sweden’s permanent mission to the UN in 2002, and at Sweden’s embassy in Moscow in 2002-2006. He later went on to serve as counselor at Sweden’s embassy in Germany and then as minister-counselor at Sweden’s embassy in the UK.