A German-Russian dual citizen has been arrested in Russia for allegedly attempting to sabotage a railway track, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
The man was found with a homemade “explosive device” when he was arrested in Nizhny Novgorod, 350 miles east of Moscow, Russia’s news agencies reported, citing the FSB.
The unnamed suspect, born in 2003, was also carrying “correspondence with a representative of the Ukrainian special services”, the FSB claimed.
Video of the arrest uploaded onto the Telegram messaging app showed masked and armed FSB officers bursting into an apartment before dawn and manhandling a man to the ground.
In footage showing his FSB interrogation, the suspect said that he had been recruited by Ukrainian special forces after returning to Russia in 2023 to pick up a new passport.
“I met Artem on the internet, who was a special service officer for Ukraine. He gave me a task, and I earned money,” he said.
Ukrainian special forces have been increasingly active across Russia, recruiting agents to sabotage infrastructure.
Railway tracks are favoured targets as they are vulnerable and a successful attack can help disrupt the supply of weapons to frontline Russian forces.
The man admitted in the interview that he had been tasked with blowing up a cargo train.
“He (Artem, the Ukrainian security agent) gave me directions to follow on how to set up the explosive device,” the man said.
Ukrainian agents are known to recruit disaffected young Russians for assassinations and sabotage missions.
In 2023, Vladlen Tatarsky, Russian pro-war propagandist, was killed at a book talk in St Petersburg after a woman allegedly groomed by the Ukrainian security service gave him a bust of himself filled with explosives.
The funeral of Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky – YURI KOCHETKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK
In October, another German national was arrested in Russia’s European exclave of Kaliningrad for allegedly sneaking in from Poland to sabotage power-producing infrastructure.
Sources at Germany’s foreign ministry have said that they are aware of the arrest but they have not made an official comment.
Last month, the ministry said it knew of at least a dozen cases of German nationals imprisoned in Russia.
Western intelligence agents have warned that Russia may be looking to take more Western hostages ahead of potential prisoner swaps with the West.