Romania says the September fire next to the Carfil arms plant in Brașov was Russian-coordinated sabotage
Romania's intelligence service SRI and anti-organised crime prosecutors DIICOT say a sabotage network coordinated from Russia started the 14 September fire on the Carfil industrial site in Brașov. Two Belarusians were arrested in Germany and a Ukrainian has been located in Poland.
Romanian authorities said on Monday, 26 October, that the fire which broke out on 14 September on the Carfil industrial site in Brașov, right next to the arms maker CARFIL SA, a subsidiary of the state-owned group CN ROMARM, was an act of sabotage organised by a network coordinated from Russia.
The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) said that, working with partners at home and abroad, it had identified the network and confirmed the involvement of several citizens of former Soviet states who live in European Union countries. The fire damaged the premises of several companies on the site.
Prosecutors from DIICOT, Romania's agency for organised crime and terrorism, said three suspects are being investigated: two Belarusian citizens and one Ukrainian. Judges at the Bucharest Court of Appeal issued European arrest warrants for them. Two were tracked down and placed in pre-trial detention in Germany, where, according to DIICOT, they were preparing similar acts. A third warrant was issued on Monday for the Ukrainian suspect, who has been located in Poland. The case is being investigated as attempted acts of sabotage, and Romania is seeking the extradition of all three.
According to the SRI, the network's mission was not limited to Romania. Its coordinators in Russia had given it a wide list of targets in the region, including state and private arms factories and other sites of military and industrial interest. DIICOT said the suspects were also targeting other sites in Romania and in other EU countries.
The SRI said the case is part of a wider Russian-coordinated sabotage campaign in Europe, and that investigations this year had uncovered other attempts against targets in Romania, including international military facilities and sites used to train Ukrainian troops. The service warned that recruitment usually happens on social media, starting with small paid tasks such as watching or photographing a site, and can escalate to destruction, arson or even murder, with blackmail used against those who refuse.