MOSCOW, April 20 (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Monday that it had detained a 57-year-old German woman with a bomb in her rucksack as part of what it cast as a false-flag operation directed by Ukrainian intelligence.
Unverified footage showed a woman lying on the tarmac in a car park while armed men pointed their weapons at her – and a rucksack beside her. Sappers were shown blowing up the rucksack.
The FSB said the German woman, who had a bomb with the equivalent of 1.5 kg of TNT, was targeting a law enforcement facility in the Stavropol region as part of a false flag operation directed by Ukraine.
The FSB said it had also detained a citizen from a country in Central Asia who thought he was acting on behalf of a “terrorist organisation” and had been due to detonate the bomb.
“The actions of the man were coordinated by employees of the Ukrainian special services under the guise of members of one of the international terrorist organisations banned in Russia,” the FSB said.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the details of the report. Ukraine did not immediately comment.
A German foreign ministry spokesperson in Berlin said the ministry had taken note of the report but would not elaborate further.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Felix Light; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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