Three Ukrainian nationals have been arrested in Germany and Switzerland on suspicion of acting as agents for Russia in a plot involving parcel bombs, German prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The men are suspected of being secret agents for the purpose of sabotage and agreeing to commit arson and bring about an explosion, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Apparently working at the behest of people acting for Russia, the suspects planned to send parcels containing explosive or incendiary devices from Germany to Ukraine, with the devices designed to detonate during freight transport, according to the prosecutors.
Two of the men — identified only as Vladyslav T and Daniil B in line with German privacy rules — were arrested in different parts of Germany on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The third man — identified as Yevhen B — was arrested on Tuesday in the northern Thurgau region of neighbouring Switzerland.
The suspects are accused of telling “one or more people suspected to be acting on behalf of Russian state agencies” around March that they were prepared to carry out attacks on freight transport in Germany, prosecutors said. The alleged plan was for the men to send packages that would explode while being transported to Ukraine.
One of the suspects — Vladyslav T — sent two “test packages” in Cologne at the end of March that contained GPS trackers to scope out possible means of transport, according to prosecutors. He was allegedly tasked with doing so by Yevhen B, who is accused of providing the contents of the packages via Daniil B.
Berlin has been closely monitoring the threat of sabotage plots by Moscow following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Hybrid warfare
Experts told Euronews that the alleged plot could be an example of hybrid warfare from Russia, which combines conventional military operations with a range of non-military tactics in a bid to achieve its strategic objectives while ensuring plausible deniability.
“The goal is to exploit an adversary’s vulnerabilities in multiple areas to create ambiguity,” said Olha Danchenkova, co-founder of Ukraine-based communications agency Calibrated and PR Army, an NGO.
“These tactics include cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, economic coercion (such as dependence on oil and gas), diplomatic pressure, arming migrants (as in Belarus), corruption, interfering in elections and the use of proxy forces,” she told Euronews.
Ihor Solovei, head of the Ukrainian Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security, told Euronews that the arsenal of hybrid aggression includes a wide range of instruments, including disinformation.
“Here’s an example: in 2022, Russia captured Mariupol using traditional methods of warfare — artillery, armoured vehicles, aviation and infantry. It was a classic military operation,” he said.
“Years earlier, in 2014, Russia captured Donetsk using hybrid warfare methods. As a result of information and propaganda operations, part of the local population turned against the central government.”
