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Two males have been arrested in Germany over suspicions that they spied for Russia and had been a part of a plot to sabotage help to Ukraine by attempting to explode navy infrastructure on German soil, the authorities introduced on Thursday.
The two males, each twin residents of Russia and Germany, had been arrested on Wednesday in Bayreuth, a metropolis about 120 miles north of Munich, German federal prosecutors stated. The arrests got here as worries develop in Germany in regards to the attain of Russian intelligence and disruption operations.
One of the lads had been in touch with Russian intelligence providers and had thought of a U.S. navy base in Germany as one in every of a number of potential targets, in keeping with federal prosecutors based mostly in Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, who oversaw the arrests.
The two males haven’t been formally charged. But the federal prosecutors stated that the pair had been suspected of working for a overseas intelligence service and, in a single man’s case, of illegally taking footage of navy infrastructure and of planning explosive assaults and arson.
In an announcement on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s inside minister, condemned a “notably severe case of suspected agent exercise” tied to the “prison regime” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Relations between Moscow and Berlin have soured since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Last 12 months, Germany closed down 4 Russian consulates after Moscow restricted the variety of German diplomatic workers allowed to remain in Russia.
“The allegation that Putin is recruiting brokers in Germany to hold out assaults on German soil is extraordinarily severe,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s overseas minister, stated in statement on X after summoning the Russian ambassador in Berlin.
“We is not going to enable Putin to carry his terror to Germany,” she stated.
In an announcement on its web site, the Russian embassy in Berlin denied the allegations, calling them an “outright provocation aimed toward inciting the already rampant spy mania in Germany, rising the diploma of anti-Russian sentiment” and “additional destroying Russian-German relations.”
In retaining with German privateness guidelines, the 2 males arrested had been recognized solely as Dieter S. and Alexander J. The police raided their workplaces and their properties on Wednesday.
Prosecutors didn’t launch any particulars about their professions however stated that Dieter S. was suspected of getting fought in jap Ukraine from 2014 to 2016 for a separatist group, the People’s Republic of Donetsk, which has shut hyperlinks to the Kremlin.
Dieter S. had been in contact with a member of an unnamed Russian intelligence service and had communicated with that contact in October about “potential sabotage acts,” in keeping with the prosecutors.
Germany is the most important European donor of navy help to Ukraine and is second globally solely to the United States, with 32 billion euros, about $34 billion, of help delivered or promised since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Dieter S. supplied to hold out assaults by planting explosives at navy infrastructure and industrial websites tied to that help, federal prosecutors stated, though they didn’t title any particular areas.
He did reconnaissance work by taking footage and movies of navy tools and navy transports, prosecutors stated, but it surely was not instantly clear how far he had gotten in getting ready any assault.
Dieter S. additionally did reconnaissance of a U.S. navy base in Germany, federal prosecutors stated, although they didn’t title any particular set up or say whether or not an assault had been deliberate.
The second man arrested, Alexander J., appeared to have joined Dieter S. final month on the newest to assist spy on infrastructure websites, prosecutors stated.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there have been different situations of Germans being accused of spying — or of trying to spy — for Russian intelligence. In one case, presently on trial in Berlin, a manager at Germany’s home intelligence company is suspected of promoting labeled details about the warfare in Ukraine to Russia.
In one other case, a former soldier working as a civilian for the navy was arrested final 12 months after he contacted a Russian consulate in Germany with a suggestion to disclose labeled info.
The arrests this week got here amid heightened safety at a lot of Germany’s important infrastructure websites within the wake of the sabotage of fuel pipelines within the Baltic Sea in September 2022. Intelligence reviewed by U.S. officers suggests {that a} pro-Ukrainian group carried out the assault on the pipeline, a part of which is in Germany.
Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.
