Germany arrests two over links to pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine

German authorities have arrested two men suspected of supporting pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

A Russian and a German national, identified as Suren A and Falko H, in line with Germany’s strict privacy laws, were taken into custody in the eastern state of Brandenburg that surrounds Berlin, according to the Federal Public Prosecutors’ Office.

They are accused of supporting foreign terrorist organizations and are set to be brought before a magistrate at Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe on Thursday who will rule on potential pre-trial detention.

They are said to have held senior roles since 2016 in a group that organized the transport of supplies, medical products and drones to Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region to support pro-Russian separatists of the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Pro-Russian separatists controlled by Moscow seized the capitals of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014 and began pushing for the regions’ secession from Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military failed to prevent the takeover, while pro-Russian militias violently cracked down on any opposition within the territories.

Russia illegally annexed the two territories following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

German prosecutors have classified the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as foreign terrorist organizations.

Russian national Suren A is said to have passed on €14,000 ($16,400) in funds raised by the association, while also funding transport of supplies for the separatists, according to prosecutors in Karlsruhe.

Falko H is accused of having coordinated orders by the militias and helped organize the distribution of supplies on the ground in Ukraine.