Weapons cache found in a forest near Berlin. German intelligence believes it was intended for assassinations ordered by Russia

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announced at a press conference that in October last year, domestic intelligence received information about a weapons hideout on the outskirts of Berlin.

Special service employees, together with the police, located the cache and found two pistols and a supply of ammunition inside.

According to Dobrindt, the weapons had been rendered inoperable.

Special services monitored the cache for several months, but no one ever approached it.

"This incident demonstrates that we have to operate in conditions of a high level of threat," the minister stated.

What is known about the suspect arrested in Romania

According to the German Interior Minister, the prosecutor's office is investigating the possible involvement in this case of a person arrested in Romania on suspicion of planning attacks using explosive devices in packages.

Dobrindt did not specify the suspect's nationality but described him as a "low-level agent" who did not know his entire command structure. He added that several such potential perpetrators, including a citizen of Kazakhstan, had already been apprehended this year.

An AFP agency source in the Romanian police reported that one of two Ukrainian citizens, who were arrested in Romania last October on charges of organizing attacks ordered by Russia, is suspected in connection with the Berlin weapons cache.

At the time, Romanian police stated that two Ukrainians, aged between 20 and 30, arrived in Bucharest from Poland and "delivered two packages containing improvised devices to the office of an international courier company." "Their goal was to destroy this building by arson," the police press release reported.

Romanian foreign intelligence stated that these Ukrainian citizens were linked "to a broad sabotage network directed against European countries and controlled by Russian special services."

Romanian authorities claimed that they had "prevented a new sabotage operation organized by the Russian Federation on Romanian territory."

What the press writes about the cache's connection to Russia

According to Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR, citing sources within the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), this special service believes that the weapons cache belonged to Russian intelligence.

"German security services are convinced that the weapons were intended for agents who, on Moscow's orders, were to carry out so-called 'kinetic operations' in the country, in other words - assassinations," the publications state.

Journalists recall that the head of the BfV, Sinan Selen, has long "warned in secret meetings in Berlin that Russian special services have intensified their tactics and are now planning contract killings in Germany."

"Moscow's target list reportedly includes leaders of the defense industry, opposition figures in exile, and various supporters of Ukraine," the authors of the publication note.

The Russian embassy in Germany did not respond to journalists' requests to comment on these allegations.

At a press conference on Friday, Dobrindt declined to confirm reports that the weapons cache was linked to Russia, but stated that he did not rule out "the involvement of foreign states."

As a BBC correspondent reminds, German authorities suspect Russia of organizing a series of attacks on the country's territory.

In 2024, CNN reported that Moscow planned the assassination of Armin Papperger, the head of Germany's largest defense concern Rheinmetall. German politicians were shocked and demanded decisive action from the authorities.

In 2021, a German court sentenced Russian citizen and FSB special forces officer Vadim Krasikov to life imprisonment for the assassination of former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in a Berlin park.

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