Russian security services said Tuesday they detained a German citizen born in 1969 after accusing her of carrying a bomb in a backpack toward a police installation in Pyatigorsk, in Russia’s Stavropol region. The Federal Security Service said the device was neutralized before it could reach the site.
The FSB said the woman was acting on behalf of Ukrainian special services and that the explosive, equivalent to 1.5 kilograms of TNT, was fitted with detonation mechanisms. It said the planned attack was intended for the morning to cause the maximum possible number of casualties among police officers. The agency also said a second person, a man born in 1997 and described as a citizen of one of the republics of Central Asia, was detained in the same case.
In a video released by the FSB, the woman said she had traveled to Russia in 2022 and that in April a person with a strong Ukrainian accent contacted her online and offered her work. The agency framed the case as a thwarted terrorist attack against a police body in the Stavropol region, with electronic warfare systems used to detect and neutralize the device before it could be used.
The FSB did not reveal the names of either detainee, and it said the Central Asian citizen had told investigators he had contacted an Islamic State representative. He said that representative ordered him to travel to Pyatigorsk and detonate the explosive remotely together with the woman. The competing accounts leave the case hinging on the agency’s version of events, but the public record so far is limited to the FSB’s claims and the detainees’ brief statements on video.
