Two French scientists admitted to carrying out an attack on the Russian consulate in Marseille using improvised explosive devices, the local newspaper La Provence reported early Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.
French police arrested the men just hours after three plastic soda bottles — two of which exploded — were thrown into the consulate’s gardens on Monday, the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No injuries were reported.
Authorities later identified the suspects at a pro-Ukraine protest in a neighborhood north of the consulate. According to La Provence, the men, described as an engineer and a chemist in their 50s and 40s, work for the Paris-based French National Center for Scientific Research.
The scientists “not only acknowledged the facts, explaining that they acted in support of the Ukrainian cause, but also detailed their modus operandi,” La Provence wrote. The report added that they used their scientific expertise to create a detonating mixture of nitrogen and other chemicals.
Under the French penal code, the two men face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of damaging property with an explosive substance.
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