At a press conference Wednesday, North Rhine-Westphalia\u2019s Interior Minister Herbert Reul directly blamed the Russian government for the plot. \u201cThe individuals had agreed, no later than the end of March 2025, to carry out arson and bomb attacks on freight transport in Germany \u2014 acting on behalf of Russian state authorities,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reul called it \u201can extraordinary event\u201d and warned that the case marks \u201ca new level of hybrid threats here in North Rhine-Westphalia, but also across Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reul emphasized that Russian intelligence services are now acting \u201cmore aggressively\u201d and taking greater risks in their operations. \u201cThey no longer need trained agents of the old school,\u201d he said. \u201cSo-called low-level agents \u2014 recruited for little money \u2014 are now enough.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added that Russia\u2019s targets include not only government institutions, but also \u201ccritical infrastructure, private businesses, and individual citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities believe the group tested the plot by sending packages with GPS trackers and intended to use thermite \u2014 a highly flammable chemical that burns at extremely high temperatures \u2014 as the main incendiary material. Their plans reportedly resembled a July 2024 incident at an airport in the eastern city of Leipzig, where a parcel caught fire during shipment.<\/p>\n
The arrests followed a months-long investigation involving domestic intelligence services, federal and regional police, and state security authorities. The main suspect, Vladyslav T., had allegedly been living covertly in Cologne. Surveillance of him led authorities to his partner, Lolita K., and to Daniil B., who was living in a refugee center in Konstanz.<\/p>\n
All three were arrested at or near their residences. Several electronic devices were seized, and a fourth person is being investigated abroad. None of the suspects were previously known to law enforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a press conference Wednesday, North Rhine-Westphalia\u2019s Interior Minister Herbert Reul directly blamed the Russian government for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[4328,10684,7694,2002,2000,299,46727,1824,46728,31865,6084,2817,2818,2003,6658,811,1199,2322,1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-100605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-airports","9":"tag-chemicals","10":"tag-critical-infrastructure","11":"tag-espionage","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-freight","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-herbert-reul","17":"tag-hybrid-threats","18":"tag-infrastructure","19":"tag-intelligence","20":"tag-intelligence-services","21":"tag-law-enforcement","22":"tag-refugees","23":"tag-security","24":"tag-services","25":"tag-surveillance","26":"tag-transport"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114505863970346751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}