Bavaria: Police arrest two suspected spies
Police in Bavaria arrested two suspected spies earlier this month, authorities announced on Thursday.
Prosecutors in Munich said the men were detained during a routine check on the A6 autobahn near the town of Neuendettelsau, just outside Nuremberg, on April 12.
The suspects — a 45-year-old from Latvia and a 43-year-old from Ukraine — were reported to have “various suspicious objects” in their vehicle, including false identity papers, cameras, a drone, GPS trackers, radios, and several mobile phones and SIM cards.
Authorities say the men are suspected of “acting on behalf of a group or institution outside Germany” and have been charged with espionage activities, including alleged aims of sabotage and the procurement of false documents.
Neither man is a resident of Germany, and both remain in pre-trial detention.
Both Latvia and Ukraine are home to Russian-speaking minorities, some of whom are sympathetic to Russia. The alleged need to protect Russian-speakers from “persecution” in Ukraine is regularly cited by Kremlin spokespeople as justification for Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Independent reports from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council of Europe and others have consistently found no evidence that Russian speakers or ethnic Russians in Ukraine have faced “persecution” by Ukrainian authorities.
https://p.dw.com/p/5Ch40