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A Ukrainian man detained in Romania after allegedly setting up a weapons stash near Berlin is suspected by investigators of belonging to a Russian-controlled agent network operating in Europe, the German magazine Spiegel reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.
The report comes as German authorities weigh whether to seek the 24-year-old's extradition from Romania, a step that Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said last week was under discussion.
According to Polish investigation files cited by Spiegel, the suspect traveled by bus from Poland to Berlin on October 1 of last year.
Once there, he retrieved two parcels containing handguns that had been left along a roadside in the eastern part of the German capital.
He then hid the weapons in an underground depot near a lake in Berlin's southeastern district before returning to Poland by bus the same way he came, the report said.
He was later detained in Bucharest along with a second Ukrainian national on suspicion of dispatching parcels containing incendiary devices through the Ukrainian courier service Nova Post, Spiegel reported.
Romanian intelligence services, cited by Spiegel, said the two suspects belong to a network of saboteurs directed by Russian state services and targeting countries across Europe.
The report did not specify further details about the structure or scope of the alleged network.
The Russian embassy in Berlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
German federal prosecutors declined to comment, and Poland's internal security agency and state prosecutor's office did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Dobrindt said last week he could not rule out the involvement of foreign powers in the case, but he described the detained suspect as a "low-level agent" who had no knowledge of his chain of command.
He said at the time that the man was also being held in connection with helping prepare parcel bomb attacks.
The case adds to a series of incidents across Europe in recent years in which security officials have accused Russian-linked operatives of using low-level recruits, often paid via encrypted messaging apps, to carry out acts of sabotage, arson or reconnaissance, part of what Western officials have broadly characterized as a campaign of hybrid warfare tied to Russia's war in Ukraine.
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