Russian military agents set fire to an Ikea store in Lithuania last year because “Ikea’s colours are the same as Ukraine’s flag”, prosecutors alleged, labelling the attack an “act of terrorism”.
The arson attack in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, came just days before a shopping centre in nearby Poland was also torched.
Arturas Urbelis from the Lithuanian prosecutor general’s office said the Ikea store was not chosen at random.
“Ikea’s colours are the same as Ukraine’s flag – this has strong symbolic meaning,” The Telegraph reported him saying. “We regard this act as an act of terrorism with serious consequences,” he added in The Guardian.
Investigators have linked the attack from May last year to Russian military intelligence, through a chain of more than 20 intermediaries, Mr Urbelis told reporters.
“The chain includes the organisers, then more organisers for certain goals, then more intermediaries, all down to the perpetrators. It is a multi-stage, very complex system,” he said in The Telegraph.
The suspects who carried out the attack were two Ukrainians, Mr Urbelis said, who had “agreed to set fire to and blow up” shopping centres in both Lithuania and Latvia for €10,000 (£8,400).
“It is obvious that the persons we have identified, the perpetrators and the intermediaries, are also linked to the criminal acts committed in Poland,” Mr Urbelis added. Just three days after the attack on Ikea, a separate arson attack destroyed Warsaw’s largest shopping centre.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the Lithuanian investigation confirmed Poland’s suspicions that Russia was behind the attacks.
“Dear allies, the investigation of the Lithuanian prosecutor’s office has confirmed our suspicions that responsible for setting fires to shopping centres in Vilnius and Warsaw are the Russian secret services,” he wrote on X. Good to know before negotiations. Such is the nature of this state.”
Polish prosecutor Przemyslaw Nowak said in the Guardian there were “several organised groups that plan and carry out acts of sabotage”.
“After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we have indeed observed an increase in the activity of foreign services in Poland, including primarily the services of Russia,” he said.
The revelations come after Britain and its allies uncovered a “staggeringly reckless” campaign of Russian sabotage across Europe last year.
The head of MI6 Sir Richard Moore accused Russia of behaving in a “dangerous and beyond irresponsible” way in a speech last year, in which he outlined Moscow’s plans to sabotage countries who have aided Ukraine.
“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine and challenge western resolve,” he said in November.
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