Lithuania accuses Russia about the fire of the Ikea store in Vilnius

Lithuanian prosecutors say that Russia Gru’s military intelligence service was behind a fire attack against an Ikea furniture store in the capital of the Baltic state, Vilnius, last year.

Two Ukrainian suspects have been arrested, one in Lithuania, the other in Poland, for the attack, which prosecutor Arturas Urbelis called “an act of terrorism.”

He said that the investigation of intermediaries had established that “this is related to military intelligence, to security services.”

The Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, said that Lithuania had “confirmed that our suspicions that responsible for facing fire centers in Vilna and Warsaw are the Russian secret services.”

“It is good to know before negotiations. Such is the nature of this state,” he wrote in an X publication.

Russia has denied repeated accusations of NATO countries that their secret services are dedicated to sabotage operations throughout Europe.

Russia was blamed for a Package fire series That aimed at messaging companies in Europe last July.

Security experts see it as a systematic campaign of “hybrid war” to undermine European support for the defense of Ukraine against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.

The fire attack in the fire in Vilnius last May did not cause victims, but that month a similar attack destroyed a huge shopping center in the Polish capital warsaw.

Prosecutor Urbelis said that the two suspects, both teenagers, had held a secret meeting in Warsaw and agreed to set the stores in Lithuania and Latvia for a reward of € 10,000 ($ 11,000; £ 8,400) and a BMW.