MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia has detained a German citizen on suspicion of explosives-smuggling and terrorism, accusing him of blowing up a pipe at a gas distribution station, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday.
The FSB said the man, identified as Nikolai Gaiduk, had been involved in the attack in Russia’s Kaliningrad Baltic Sea exclave in March, using a home-made bomb.
It said he was arrested during a subsequent attempt to enter Kaliningrad from Poland, when authorities searched his car and found 0.5 litres of liquid explosive.
The FSB said Gaiduk was born in 1967 and lives in Hamburg. It accused him of acting on the instructions of a Ukrainian man also living in the north German city.
“Currently, measures are being taken to identify and bring to justice the persons who assisted Gaiduk … in carrying out illegal activities,” the agency said.
A German Foreign Ministry official said the ministry was aware of the case, and the consulate general in St Petersberg was in contact with Russian authorities and had offered consular assistance.
According to Russia’s emergencies ministry, the pipe explosion in March caused a fire but there were no casualties.
(Reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva in Moscow, Mark Trevelyan in London and Miranda Murray in BerlinEditing by Peter Graff)
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