Bavaria investigates two Belarusians over alleged sabotage plot

Bavaria’s General Prosecutor’s Office is investigating two Belarusian men suspected of planning an arson attack on critical infrastructure near Nuremberg, BR reports. The men have been in pre-trial detention since October 7.

Investigators suspect the 39- and 50-year-olds agreed before September 30 to carry out the attack for payment on behalf of a foreign government or organisation. They allegedly planned to use accelerants to set fire to an unidentified building or critical infrastructure facility. BR has reported that the target may have been a railway line or power transmission line.

The suspected aim was to cause significant property damage and endanger Germany’s security, the prosecutor’s office said. Its Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism has taken over the investigation from the Nuremberg-Fürth prosecutor’s office. The men are being investigated on suspicion of agreeing to commit arson, together with acting as agents for sabotage purposes.

The two men are also suspected of involvement in an arson attack in Romania. Romania’s intelligence service says a Russian-controlled sabotage network set fire to an industrial site near an arms company in Brașov on September 14. Romania is seeking the extradition of the two Belarusians and a Ukrainian held in Poland.

The Munich prosecutor’s office said the Belarusians’ extradition detention has been noted as an additional detention order. They are wanted in Romania for prosecution. The office gave no further details about the Romanian investigation. The men are presumed innocent.

It remains unclear who was behind the alleged plans in Bavaria. Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter Extremism Project, told BR that recent arrests indicate the reach of Russian sabotage networks. He said Germany was both a target and an operational and fallback base for parts of those networks, which increasingly recruit so-called disposable agents through intermediaries.

Schindler said the cases reflected a range of Russian activity in Europe, including espionage, disinformation, cyberattacks and sabotage. He called for closer cooperation among European security and intelligence services, and stronger technical capabilities for German intelligence agencies, particularly in data analysis and the use of artificial intelligence.