The Russian domestic intelligence service, the FSB, has reportedly arrested a German citizen in Kaliningrad on Wednesday for allegedly planning acts of sabotage.
Upon entering the Russian Baltic Sea exclave from Poland, 50 grams of liquid explosives were allegedly seized in his car, which he had driven from his home in Hamburg.
According to the Russian news agency, the FSB alleged that the man had received orders from a Ukrainian man who also lives in Hamburg to carry out some sort of attack.
Russian authorities also suspect the German man of having carried out an explosives attack on a gas distribution station in the Kaliningrad region in March.
According to Russian media reports, the FSB alleges that the man again intended to damage Russian energy facilities when he re-entered Russia.
He has been remanded in custody on charges of terrorism and smuggling explosives, and Russian authorities are searching for suspected accomplices in the alleged plot.
However, there was no independent confirmation of these accusations by the Russian intelligence service.
Russian news agencies reported that the man in question is a German national who was born in 1967 in Hamburg.
The German Foreign Office in Berlin said it is keeping itself informed of the case but did not have immediate comment on the allegations and the man’s arrest.
Relations between Russia and NATO countries, including Germany, have been at their worst point in decades since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
During the conflict, Russian authorities have repeatedly arrested foreign citizens on hotly disputed charges, including in several incidents which Western governments have denounced as false or trumped-up cases.
Russia has been accused of trying to use foreign citizens as bargaining chips for possible prisoner exchanges. (dpa/NAN)
