UPDATE - Berlin confirms arrest of German national arrest in Russia

UPDATES WITH STATEMENT FROM GERMAN OFFICIALS, CHANGES TITLE, DECK

By Oliver Towfigh Nia

BERLIN (AA) - Germany on Wednesday confirmed that one of its nationals had been arrested last month in Russia but gave no reason for his detention.

“The German Consulate General in Saint Petersburg offered consular assistance to the detainee and was in contact with the Russian authorities,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer told a press briefing in Berlin.

Deschauer said she could “not to share any additional information” on the case, citing “reasons of personal rights.”

The Russian intelligence service said earlier Wednesday that it had arrested a German citizen who allegedly had explosives meant for carrying out a terrorist attack on an energy facility in Kaliningrad, a Russian Baltic Sea exclave.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement that Nikolay Gaiduk, 57, a German citizen with a Ukrainian name, had arrived in Russia from Poland and was also suspected of committing another crime, namely organizing an explosion at a power plant in Kaliningrad this March.

"Gaiduk was detained upon entering the territory of the Kaliningrad region from the Republic of Poland for organizing sabotage activities at energy facilities. 0.5 liters of liquid explosive were seized in his Ford Focus with German registration plates," the FSB said.

According to the investigators, Gaiduk was sent by a Ukrainian citizen, Alexander Anatolyevich Zhorov, who was born in 1967, lives in Hamburg, and has a German residence permit.

The FSB said it is doing an investigation to determine whether other people were involved in planning the attack.

Deschauer also said “a low double-digit number of people with German citizenship” are currently imprisoned in Russia.

She declined to provide any details on the people or the reasons for their detention due to privacy concerns.​​​​​​​

There is an atmosphere of intimidation and fear in Russia, in which arbitrary arrests of foreign nationals can also occur, she said. For this reason, she added, the ministry strongly advises against traveling to Russia.