Russia allegedly paid a Ukrainian teenager to firebomb an Ikea store as part of its “hybrid war” on the West, US media reported on Thursday.
Russian spies are said to have offered the 17-year-old $11,000 (£8,000) in cash and a BMW to carry out the attack on an Ikea store in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the New York Times reported.
The agents communicated with him via the encrypted Chinese messenger app Zengi, under the James Bond-inspired alias of Q, Lithuanian prosecutors allege.
The teenager, who fled Ukraine after the February 2022 invasion and was resettled as a refugee in the European Union, allegedly carried out the attack in May 2024.
The teenager is detained by police in Lithuania. Prosecutors allege he was preparing to carry out an attack in neighbouring Latvia
The allegations are the latest to emerge from Russia’s hybrid war campaign in Europe, which is targeting factories and other key infrastructure in retaliation for Europe’s military support of Ukraine.
They are deeply concerning for EU countries who have welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees, and now realise some are being targeted by Russia to carry out acts of turncoat sabotage.
Security experts say the ease with which Russia hires people for such attacks is like a “gig economy” for sabotage and state-sponsored terror.
‘Age and ideology don’t matter to Russia’
“For Russia, age, gender and ideology don’t matter…their goal is to coerce and deter us from supporting Ukraine,” Marius Cesnulevicius, the national security adviser to Lithuania’s president, told the New York Times.
“We are supporting Ukraine, and, in the Kremlin’s logic, this means we are supporting Nazis.”
Lithuanian authorities who arrested the teenager say they have been able to piece together most of the details related to the attack.
They allege the teenager planted an incendiary device in the bedding department of the Ikea store, intending to burn down the entire building but ultimately failing to do so.
Firefighters tackle the blaze at the Ikea store, above and below. The operation took several hours
A machine during the damping down operation at the store
According to the New York Times, which was briefed by multiple Lithuanian sources, the teenager apparently received a battered BMW, but not the cash he had been promised.
It remains unclear why Ikea was the target of the attack. The teenager also allegedly scouted an Ikea store in the eastern city of Siauliai, which hosts a Nato base.
Last year, Lithuanian police arrested an 82-year-old retired man in Siauliai on suspicions of being an agent of GRU (Russian military intelligence) after discovering “spy gear” at his home.
Eduardas Manovas was sentenced on Thursday to eight and a half years in prison for spying on behalf of GRU, according to Lithuania’s public broadcaster.
‘The goal is to cause chaos’
In the teenager’s case, he was living as a refugee in Poland when he was allegedly recruited to commit the attack. It is claimed he crossed into Lithuania in April 2024 to scout his targets.
In addition to using Zengi, his Russian “handlers” also allegedly sent messages on Telegram, another encrypted messaging app, where they used the name Warrior2Alpha.
Darius Jauniskis, the outgoing head of Lithuania’s state security department, said Russia’s goal was to cause “chaos”.
He said: “We have already entered a war zone in Europe. Their goal…is to create havoc, to create mistrust and panic…welcome to World War III.”
A huge blaze at a shopping centre in Poland in May is one of a number of incidents blamed on Russian sabotage
The Ikea fire in Lithuania occurred in the same month as a highly suspicious blaze at a factory in Berlin owned by an arms company. That case is also being actively investigated as Russian sabotage.
The Telegraph revealed in March that suspected Russian agents carried out online research into fire safety protocols at the Diehl factory premises, shortly before the blaze occurred.
Russia has been accused of trying to firebomb aircraft by planting incendiary devices at DHL logistics sites in Birmingham, Leipzig in eastern Germany, and in Vilnius. A shopping centre fire in Poland in May 2024 has been blamed on Russia by investigators.
In Germany, investigators suspect a possible Russian link to a series of terror attacks committed by foreigners in the run-up to the February elections.
