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Russian military intelligence was behind a fire at an Ikea store in Vilnius last year and at least one of the suspects is linked to other sabotage events in eastern Europe, according to prosecutors in Lithuania.
Artūras Urbelis, Lithuania’s chief prosecutor for organised crime, said that Russia was linked to the Ikea arson and other incidents through a chain of intermediaries.
“The organisers of these actions are Russia. It is linked to military intelligence, to the security forces,” Urbelis said on Monday.
Russia is accused of sabotage across Europe by a large number of western intelligence officials after a number of fires, parcel bombs, and acts of vandalism in recent months. The officials have said that Russia often pays people, including low-level criminals, to carry out the attacks.
A Polish court last month sentenced a Ukrainian man to eight years in prison for planning acts of sabotage and arson on Russia’s behalf. Polish authorities last week charged a Belarusian with an arson attack on a large DIY store in Warsaw on behalf of Russian intelligence. In the UK, a man last year pleaded guilty to accepting pay from foreign intelligence when setting fire to a Ukrainian-owned business in east London.
Keir Giles, senior fellow at Chatham House, described the attacks so far as ‘‘isolated pinpricks’’ but said hybrid warfare by Russia could pose a serious risk.
“If you strip out the random noise of apparently pointless vandalism like attacks on Ikea and shopping centres, and focus instead on the targeted reconnaissance and damage to communications and logistics infrastructure, it becomes clear how damaging this campaign could be if and when it transitions to mass co-ordinated attacks.’’ he said.
Authorities are also investigating whether Russia is behind a number of bigger acts of sabotage in the Baltic Sea in the past two years after gas pipelines and electricity and data cables were cut by ship anchors.
The Kremlin has denied European governments’ accusations of hybrid warfare.
Prosecutors in Lithuania are treating the Ikea fire as an act of terrorism and believe the perpetrators are two Ukrainian citizens.
One suspect was arrested last May while he was on his way to the Latvian capital Riga to conduct a similar arson attack, according to Lithuanian prosecutors. The suspect, who was under-aged at the time of the attack, agreed to be paid €10,000 for both the Vilnius and Riga attacks, they added.
The suspect then placed an incendiary device in the Ikea store on the evening of May 8 with a timed fuse that went off at about 4am the next day. The suspect had already returned to Warsaw where they received a BMW 530 as a reward for completing the task, prosecutors added.
The second suspect is currently detained in Poland and part of the investigation will be transferred to Polish authorities, Urbelis said. The suspects appear to be connected to criminal acts committed in Poland as well, he added.
The Lithuanian prosecutor said Ikea was chosen deliberately because the furniture retailer had closed all of its stores in Russia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the Lithuanian prosecutors’ office had ‘‘confirmed our suspicions’’ that Russian security services were responsible for setting fire to shopping centres in Vilnius and Warsaw. ‘‘Good to know before negotiations. Such is the nature of this state,” he wrote on X.
An Estonian court convicted seven people last year of vandalising cars belonging to the country’s interior minister and a journalist on the instructions of Russian intelligence.
Additional reporting by Charles Clover in London
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