The court hearings that began on May 20 against three joint German-Russian nationals came just days after German prosecutors charged three Ukrainian citizens with planning sabotage.<\/p>\n
The two cases are the latest in a series involving low-level, \u201cdisposable\u201d Russian agents across Europe. Also this week, the deputy head of Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency, Sinan Selen<\/strong><\/a>, reportedly warned that Russia was increasingly using such agents.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Disposable agents\u2019 is a term for people who are recruited for these attacks,\u201d said Umbach.<\/p>\n \u201cCriminal elements are approached. Often people are recruited over the darknet or on Telegram and other platforms. Often, they\u2019re people who just want to earn some money.\u201d<\/p>\n In Munich, the three men in the dock were arrested<\/strong><\/a> in April last year.<\/p>\n Prosecutors allege that Dieter S., the ringleader, was in contact with a Russian secret service agent that he met years earlier when he was a member of a Russian-backed separatist group in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe accused fought\u2026at Donetsk airport<\/strong><\/a> in the winter of 2014-15 and in the small town of Mariyinka in June 2015,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n In 2023, living in Germany, he allegedly began exchanging plans with his handler before recruiting his two accomplices, who lived nearby.<\/p>\n \u201cAlexander J. and Alex D. were helping him by March 2024 at the latest,\u201d prosecutors said.<\/p>\n All three men insist they are innocent.<\/p>\n They were reportedly an auto mechanic and a graphic designer.<\/p>\n Alleged ringleader Dieter S. is escorted through the courtroom<\/p>\n ‘Ordinary People’<\/strong><\/p>\n According to German authorities, the three Ukrainian men, who were charged on May 14, had similarly innocuous backgrounds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first impression is of low-level agents — people who…are recruited for not much money and who then do the job for the Russian state,\u201d said Herbert Reul, interior minister of Germany\u2019s North-Rhine Westphalia region.<\/p>\n “These people, the direct perpetrators, are 99% not members of any network. They could be just ordinary hired people,” Roman Kostenko, a colonel in Ukraine\u2019s main security agency, the SBU, told RFE\/RL\u2019s Ukrainian Service.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Kostenko, who is also a lawmaker, added that they \u201cmay not even have known which country they were working for.\u201d<\/p>\n But former Ukrainian intelligence officer Vasyl Bohdan told RFE\/RL that it was relevant in this case that Ukrainians had allegedly been recruited.<\/p>\n \u201cPutin is trying in every way to compromise Ukraine,\u201d he said, adding that among Ukrainian refugees in Europe there were people who \u201care primarily interested in making a quick buck somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n This may have been the case with Ukrainian refugee Serhiy S.<\/strong><\/a>, who was sentenced to eight years in prison by a Polish court in February for planning arson attacks on civilian buildings in Wroclaw.<\/p>\n He denied the charges but admitted had he agreed to commit arson in return for money from an unknown party he communicated with online. The 51-year-old was reportedly offered $4,000.<\/p>\n![\"Alleged](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/afd35646-0e4c-40cd-9581-f4a39bb2284f_w250_r1_s.jpg\"\/)
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