Ukrainian Citizen Arrested in Germany for Spying on a Defense Facility

A Ukrainian citizen suspected of planning to sabotage a military facility has been arrested in Germany.

Deutsche Welle reported on this.

The 33-year-old man is accused of conducting reconnaissance using a drone at a military company in Bavaria as an agent of a foreign intelligence service.

The Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) conducts the investigation under the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office. The agency has not disclosed any additional details of the case, including the name of the company or the intelligence services that allegedly commissioned the sabotage.

The man was detained on August 2 in the federal state of Thuringia, in eastern Germany.

German investigators claim that in June, as a low-level agent, he photographed the premises of a military company and sent the photos to his handler.

Low-level agents are often recruited through social media and used for relatively simple tasks. Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, agent activity and the threat of sabotage in Germany have increased significantly.

On July 25, Germany’s domestic intelligence service warned domestic companies in the defense and security sectors about an increased threat of espionage, sabotage, and possible attacks from Russia.

A drone was also used in a sabotage attempt in Germany on August 5, when a drone carrying an object that could have been an explosive device with a detonator was discovered near a Ukrainian An-124 Ruslan transport aircraft at Leipzig Airport on the night of August 5.

On August 5, German intelligence agencies foiled a Russian attempt to assassinate Stefan Tumann, the manager of the German startup Donaustahl, which supplies weapons to the Ukrainian army.