A pro-Russian Ukrainian male suspected of wishing to attack targets in France has been arrested after allegedly accidentally setting off an explosive device at France’s largest airport.
A 26-year-old Ukrainian-born male with Russian citizenship was arrested on Monday after, it is alleged, he accidentally set off an improvised bomb at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport. The arrest was only made public knowledge in French media days later.
The blast is said to have taken place in a room in the airport’s “hotel zone” and caused severe burns to the man’s face and a head injury.
Police discovered false papers and bomb making components in the room, it is said. According to local newspaper La Voix du Nord, the explosive was of the ‘TATP’ (Triacetone-Triperoxide) type made with acetone, favoured by terrorists in Europe because the ingredients are widely and legally available. The downside is TATP is extremely unstable and consequently dangerous to handle, and even a small disturbance can cause it to explode, leading to terror groups like the Islamic State naming it “Mother of Satan”.
The investigation has been taken over by the national counter-terrorism police.
Russian Spies Who Planned to Destroy Army Trains Convicted in Poland https://t.co/dzS6b7uAHn
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 21, 2023
The man is being investigated for: “participation in a terrorist criminal association with a view to preparing crimes of attacks against persons… possession of an incendiary or explosive substance or product or elements intended to compose an incendiary or explosive device with a view to preparing destruction, damage or harm to persons, in connection with a terrorist enterprise.”
French newspaper Le Figaro cites sources close to the investigation who say the suspect was born in the Ukrainian region of Donbass but recently acquired Russian citizenship after east Ukraine was occupied by Moscow. He is also said to have fought for the Russian army in recent months.
The man denies he was planning a terror attack and claims the blast was an accident.
The blast, if proven by police to have been an act of terrorism, would be just the latest alleged incident of Russian sabotage against European states supporting Ukraine with arms. As reported last month:
There were several such incidents across the continent in April, including the arrest of a Polish national in his home country, accused of conducting hostile reconnaissance against the airport used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he flies abroad.
Because Ukraine is covered by a no-fly zone, when politicians enter and leave the country they travel first by VIP train across the Polish border and then to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, where flights can then take them worldwide. The Polish Prosecutor said of the allegations against the man: “The findings of the investigation show that the suspect’s tasks included collecting information that would be helpful in planning a possible assassination attempt on the life of the President of Ukraine by the Russian services… the detainee was charged with reporting readiness to act for foreign intelligence against the Republic of Poland… The act is punishable by up to 8 years in prison.”
In the same month two German-Russian dual citizens were arrested in Germany over alleged hostile reconnaissance of a U.S. Army base in Bavaria used to train Ukrainian soldiers. The pair were said to be planning to “commit explosives and arson attacks, especially on military infrastructure and industrial sites in Germany”. One of the suspects in the case, Dieter S., was accused of: “conspiring to cause an explosive explosion and arson, acting as an agent for sabotage purposes… membership in a foreign terrorist organization and preparing a serious act of violence that endangers the state.”
Again in April five people in the United Kingdom were facing charges over an arson attack that burnt out a Ukrainian-owned business in London. At least one of the group was charged with hostile activity intended to “assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out activities in the UK”. In February of this year Estonia arrested ten alleged saboteurs, who were accused of working to spread fear as part of a “hybrid operation”, the neologism now in currency for war by other means.
A remarkable case in December 2023 saw 14 ‘spies’, who among their number were Ukrainian refugees, sentenced by a court for a plot to gather information and launch a variety of actions and attacks. The court heard how the group were in communication with Russian intelligence and had been promised payments in cryptocurrency payments in return for their work.
The bounties on offer from Moscow were said to have included $5 for putting up a poster disseminating pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian propaganda, or $400 for installing a wireless surveillance camera watching a port, airport, or railyard where military equipment transited from Europe to Ukraine. $10,000 in crypto was apparently offered in return for derailing a military train carrying equipment to Ukraine.
While derailing a train may seem fanciful, such tactics are already in widespread use in the Ukraine war itself and beyond, with pro-Kyiv saboteurs working overtime behind Russian lines to prevent ammunition and resupply trains reaching the front line, frequently blowing lines, burning equipment, and derailing trains. In some cases the Ukrainian partisans have gone further, planting car bombs on the personal vehicles of targets within Russia.
