Two pistols, some ammunition, and a patch of woodland outside Berlin. That was the whole find, and Germany’s interior minister now treats it as part of a bigger fight.
Alexander Dobrindt told reporters on Friday that federal prosecutors have opened an investigation “on suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence that threatens national security.” The cache itself turned up about a year ago, after agents of the domestic intelligence service received a tip. What changed this week is that the story went public, and with it the suspicion that Russian intelligence stashed the guns for targeted killings on German soil.
Left in the ground on purpose
Police did not carry the weapons away. According to Dobrindt, they made both handguns unusable and left them where they were, then watched the spot electronically for months, hoping someone would come back and lead them to the network. Nobody did. Investigators concluded that whoever was behind the cache had learned it was found, which made it “dead” in the minister’s phrasing.
Der Spiegel and a team led by Süddeutsche Zeitung, working with the broadcasters NDR and WDR, reported that state security and counterespionage services had been chasing the case as a suspected Russian assassination plot. Moscow’s possible target list, those outlets said, includes arms company executives, exiled opposition figures and prominent backers of Ukraine.
Dobrindt was more careful than the press. He would not say Russia was responsible. He said only that he could not rule out “foreign powers”, the same line he used after an explosives-laden drone was found at Leipzig airport two weeks earlier. The federal prosecutor’s office and the Russian embassy declined to comment.
The suspect in Romania
One man is already in custody. Germany is seeking to extradite him from Romania, where he was detained last year. His nationality has not been disclosed. Dobrindt described him as a “low-level agent” who had no idea who sat above him, and said he was being held in connection with planned parcel bomb attacks in Romania. Other operatives, among them a Kazakh citizen, have been picked up this year and were similarly in the dark about the wider network.
The Guardian reported that Spiegel is looking into whether the arms cache connects to a sabotage campaign against Ukrainian supply routes that has been blamed on Russia. Cold war intelligence services liked to bury weapons for later use, and this looks like the same old trick. Last year Polish officials arrested several people accused of planning to mail parcels with incendiary devices or detonators, some reportedly posted from Romania. In 2024 a firebomb in a DHL parcel went off in a freight container at Leipzig airport. A delayed flight was the only reason it did not ignite in the air.
Warnings from the top
Sinan Selen, who heads the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has cautioned for months that Russian services are turning more aggressive, including plans for attacks on German territory. A spokesperson for the agency said it does not comment on specific intelligence activities.
Die Zeit reported earlier this month on an alleged plot against Stefan Thumann, head of the drone maker Donaustahl. A Ukrainian man and a Romanian woman were arrested this spring, and Thumann is under police protection. Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage or intimidation in EU countries. After the Leipzig drone, its embassy in Berlin called the accusations a “hastily fabricated provocation.”
“This case demonstrates that we are operating under a high threat level,” Dobrindt said. The Romanian suspect’s extradition is the next test of how much he can tell investigators.
