French police arrest Russian-Ukrainian man in suspected bombing plot

A 26-year-old Russian-Ukrainian man was arrested on Tuesday evening on suspicion of plotting an attack using homemade explosives, French media reported on Wednesday.

The suspect, questioned at the local hospital, is said to have been seriously injured while handling a device made from TATP, a powerful homemade explosive, in a nearby hotel.

The police have found components used for making an improvised explosive device in his hotel room, according to reports.

The suspect is being interviewed by the French security agency DGSI, according to Le Figaro. He is said to be a Russian speaker from the Donbas region of Ukraine.

The Donbas, in the east of Ukraine, has been the site of the initial Russian invasion in 2014, when Moscow aided and abetted the local pro-Russian separatists.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, parts of the Donbas — together with two other occupied Ukrainian oblasts, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — have been unilaterally annexed by the Kremlin, a decision rejected by Kyiv and the international community.

Authorities are investigating suspicions that the suspect may have planned an attack on a cargo flight bound for Ukraine departing from Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport near Paris, the reports said.