By Olaf Wagner
Lepsiusstrasse on Fichtenberg in Steglitz: A quiet area with old mansions. The Russian news agency “Ria Novosti” resides in one.
Suddenly there was a state of emergency from Friday afternoon until Saturday morning at 1 a.m. Dozens of police vehicles cordoned off the area around the news agency villa.
Officials rang the bells of local residents and asked them to leave their homes. The reason: bomb alarm in the agency building.
A beer bottle flew through this window on the first floor of the Russian news agency in Steglitz Photo: Olaf Wagner
A stranger threw a beer bottle through a window. This is on the first floor facing the street. The police came, and during a search of the house, the officers, together with agency employees, made a suspicious find.
In a light shaft of the building was an “unknown explosive or incendiary device” (USBV). As it turned out later, it was actually an incendiary device. Supposedly a canister wrapped with metal wires, as agency employees claimed a little later on a “Telegram” channel.
The people in the building were lucky – according to the police, the incendiary device did not ignite.
When the police came, the incendiary device was discovered in the building on Lepsiusstrasse Photo: Olaf Wagner
The police then moved in with the explosives experts from the State Criminal Police Office. In the meantime, the neighboring buildings have been evacuated.
A resident to the BZ: “The road was blocked for a length of 150 meters.” With a controlled explosion, the incendiary device was then destroyed on site in the early evening. “But we weren’t allowed to go home until around 1 a.m.,” said the resident.
Whether there is a connection to the war in Ukraine cannot be clarified. Nor whether the attack was initiated by the Russian side for propaganda purposes. “The actual danger of the object and the motivation for the crime are still part of the investigation,” said a police spokesman in the afternoon.