Russian police have arrested a German-Russian citizen for allegedly preparing to sabotage a rail line on orders from Kyiv, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday, according to Russian media.
Authorities accused the man, born in 2003, of having “prepared to sabotage a section of railway line in the city of Nizhny Novgorod with an explosive device” in return for a “financial reward” from Ukraine’s SBU security service, the FSB statement read.
“Means of communication” found at the suspect's home allegedly showed messages exchanged with an SBU representative.
The arrest comes several weeks after another German citizen, identified as Nikolai Gaiduk, was arrested in the northwestern Kaliningrad region on charges of sabotaging energy installations.
He is alleged to have received the explosive material and orders to carry out the attack from a Ukrainian citizen living in Hamburg, according to the FSB.
A source at the German foreign ministry said the German embassy in Moscow had “received information about the arrest of a presumed German national and is trying to gain consular access.”
But the same source noted that “dual nationals are treated by Russia as exclusively Russian nationals and therefore consular access is normally denied.”
Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has been a spike in authorities charging people with sabotage, treason and terrorism, including several Westerners.
On Nov. 20, Germany’s foreign ministry said it knew of at least a dozen cases of German nationals imprisoned in Russia.
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