Russia arrests German woman in alleged bomb plot

Russia said on Monday (April 20, 2026) it had arrested a German woman found with a homemade bomb in her backpack in what it alleged was a Ukrainian-hatched plot to blow up a security services facility in the south.

Russia has arrested dozens of people throughout the four-year war, mostly its own citizens, on allegations of working for Ukraine to carry out sabotage attacks.

There has been a string of high-profile arrests of Western citizens since Moscow ordered its troops into Ukraine — typically on espionage charges that are widely seen as baseless, with those detained later swapped in exchange for Russians jailed abroad.