GRU saboteurs were plotting to set fire to factories in Germany and Slovakia

A man and a woman from Bulgaria have been detained in Munich after throwing incendiary devices from a moving car on 3 September at a construction site next to the headquarters of the technology company Rohde & Schwarz and the defense firm Helsing, which supplies drones to the Ukrainian army. According to security sources, the suspects belong to a group of Russian military intelligence — the GRU — operating out of Slovakia.

The resulting fire was quickly put out, and the suspects were arrested on the spot. Investigators say the same GRU cell was also behind a foiled attempt to set fire to a factory belonging to the Ukrainian drone company Skyeton in the village of Haniska near Prešov, Slovakia.

Arrests on both sides of the border

In late August, police detained a Latvian and a Ukrainian on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Skyeton factory. Later, another Latvian connected to the case was caught in Hamburg and extradited to Slovakia.

According to Slovak police, the planned arson could have caused a large-scale fire and endangered the lives of roughly 70 employees who may have been in the building at the time of the attack. Preliminary estimates put the value of the property in the production hall at tens of millions of euros — equivalent to hundreds of millions of Czech crowns.

Part of the hybrid war against Ukraine

Investigators believe the case fits into a broader pattern of hybrid operations run by a special GRU unit with a logistics network spanning Europe. The incident that drew the most attention in early August was in Leipzig, Germany, where a drone loaded with explosives was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane carrying ammunition. According to the German government, the Kremlin was behind that attack.

Sources say the goal of such operations is to disrupt shipments of military equipment to Ukraine and to pressure European countries into scaling back their support for Kyiv. Other European states share similar concerns.

Alarm in Europe, and silence from Fico

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Thursday that his country could soon face a sabotage attack comparable to the incident in Leipzig. It was previously reported that American intelligence agencies had warned European governments of a possible Russian drone attack against Spain, France or Italy.

Slovakia's opposition is demanding an immediate response to the Russian trail. "If a Russian connection is confirmed, we demand that the Russian Federation be held accountable at once — starting with the expulsion of all Russian intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover," said Tomáš Valášek, a former ambassador to NATO from the opposition party Progressive Slovakia.

"If that doesn't happen, and Russia does succeed in carrying out a sabotage attack in Slovakia, then Robert Fico will be to blame as well," Valášek added. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico himself, along with the rest of the ruling coalition, has so far made no comment on the situation.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz