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German police arrest Kazakh national suspected of ties to Russian intelligence

BERLIN (AP) — German police arrested a Kazakh national suspected of passing information about possible targets for sabotage and Germany’s defense industry to Russia’s intelligence service, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The federal prosecutor’s office said the suspect, identified only as Sergei K., was detained Tuesday under an arrest warrant that alleges he maintained continuous contact with Russian intelligence since at least May 2025.

He was said to have passed on information about defense companies, including ones developing drones and robots.

The suspect also allegedly informed a contact with the foreign intelligence service about “suitable targets for sabotage” in Germany and offered to recruit members for an espionage and sabotage group.

The suspect was being brought Wednesday before a judge who would decide whether he could be locked up pending trial.

Authorities in Germany and other European Union and NATO countries have been on high alert as relations with Russia have deteriorated to the lowest levels since the Cold War after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks ranging from arson and sabotage to cyberattacks and espionage since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s drone strikes set a gloomy tone for Putin’s economic showcase

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A massive black cloud rising above the St. Petersburg skyline from a Ukrainian drone strike set a gloomy tone for the opening of President Vladimir Putin's annual showcase of Russia's economic achievements. With Putin set to arrive Thursday in his hometown that is hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Ukrainian attack a day earlier that set an oil terminal ablaze was another embarrassing blow to his efforts to minimize the impact of the 4-year-old conflict and cast it as a distant event with no effect on Russian daily life. The attack, which also targeted a naval base near Russia's second-largest city on the Gulf of Finland, underlined Ukraine’s growing capability to hit deep inside its neighbor and demonstrated that even the heavily protected city where Putin was born is increasingly vulnerable. Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.
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