Bulgaria on Monday issued European arrest warrants against two 19-year-old German nationals, saying it suspected their involvement in the sabotage of a series of Starlink antennas near the capital Sofia.
“The evidence gathered makes it possible to conclude that there are reasonable grounds to suspect the involvement of the two defendants,” the court in Sofia rules, granting a request from prosecutors.
Ukraine‘s military uses Starlink’s military-grade satellite internet service Starshield for battlefield communications amid Russia’s invasion.
Bulgaria does not directly border Ukraine, but it is on the Black Sea, one of the flashpoints of the conflict. A similar case in Poland, which does directly border Ukraine, led to a total of four arrests last week, also in Germany.
What do we know about the incident in Bulgaria?
The two teenage suspects are accused of deliberately setting fire to the antennas on the evening of October 9.
Of 18 in a mountainous region south of Sofia, three were destroyed entirely, two were partially burned and three more were damaged, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors say the suspects entered from Serbia in a car with German license plates, claiming to be tourists, staying just a few hours around the time of the alleged crime.
Plamen Tonchev, the head of Bulgaria’s domestic intelligence agency DANS, said he was working on the assumption that it was deliberate sabotage and said other such acts could not be ruled out in future.
What is the potential tie-in to a Polish sabotage case?
News of the arrests follow just a week after a total of four people were arrested in Germany, accused of sabotaging a Starlink satellite communications station in central Poland in late September.
German police detained three resident men and a woman, two of them Turkish nationals, early last week.
Polish officials said they believed that Russia was behind the sabotage attempt, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk calling it an act of “hybrid warfare.”
The domestic intelligence agency also claimed that Russia had cooperated with organized crime elements in Germany on the alleged operation.
Meanwhile, in the Baltic, Lithuania’s prime minister on Sunday said that Russia was likely behind an attempted arson attack on a company hosting communication hardware for Starlink satellites.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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