Presov: a drone-plant arson plot claimed by a self-styled peace group
Slovak police stopped three foreign nationals before they could set fire to a Ukrainian-owned drone factory near Presov. Officers seized a quantity of petrol mixed with polystyrene, tools, phones, a camera and a hand-drawn plan of the plant. About seventy people were on site.
Two were held in Slovakia and a third in Hamburg on a European arrest warrant. They are charged with acting on order, though nobody has said whose. A group calling itself Global Citizens Against War 1984 then claimed the attack and published a manifesto presenting arson against the defence industry as part of the struggle for peace.
↓ Download one-page brief (PDF)A plant moved to Slovakia to be safe
Skyeton, founded by the Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksandr Stepura, announced a production site at Haniska near Presov in spring 2024, expecting to employ up to two hundred people. Production was moved into an EU and NATO state precisely to put it out of range of Russian strikes.
Reconnaissance, on paper
The material later seized includes a hand-drawn plan of the facility, handwritten notes, an action camera and smartphones. Somebody walked the site and drew it.
The mixture
Officers recover a large quantity of petrol mixed with polystyrene. Preliminary analysis identifies the components; police describe the result as a homemade form of napalm, a mixture that clings and burns rather than simply igniting.
25 August - three arrests in two countries
The organised crime unit, working with the intelligence services, detains two suspects in Slovakia. German authorities arrest the third in Hamburg on a European arrest warrant that Slovak police note was issued in an exceptionally short time.
27 August - custody, and a claim
A Presov court remands the two held in Slovakia. The same week a group calling itself Global Citizens Against War 1984 emails a claim of responsibility to a Slovak newspaper and publishes a manifesto describing itself as an anti-war movement and justifying attacks on the defence industry as part of the struggle for peace.
The denials and the company
The Russian embassy in Bratislava calls the allegation another instance of unproven claims against Russia. Skyeton states that Russia routinely attacks its facilities and its reputation, and that the attempt is further proof that Ukrainian defence manufacturers have become a real thorn in their side.
Recruited arson across Europe
A documented pattern of proxy arson and sabotage against European defence manufacturers, logistics and rail, using people recruited cheaply and often online - the same model as Leyton and the 2024 parcel campaign.
Why the plant is in Slovakia
Skyeton announced the Haniska site to protect production from Russian attack. Its Slovak output goes to Western markets; the Ukrainian plant supplies Ukraine's armed forces. The defence minister has stated the Slovak site holds no export licences for eastern markets.
A fire in Tallinn, a week earlier
Estonian authorities opened an investigation into an overnight fire at a facility used by the defence manufacturer Milrem Robotics, treating it as suspected arson and examining whether it was set to undermine support for Ukraine.
The manifesto
Global Citizens Against War 1984 publishes a statement claiming the Slovak attempt and framing attacks on drone manufacturers as anti-war action. The group was not previously known.
The company moved its production line several hundred miles west to put it beyond the range of Russian missiles, and it worked. What reached it instead was three recruited men, a hand-drawn map and a bucket of petrol and polystyrene, which cost the sponsor nothing and required no missile at all.
Relocation defeated the missile and delivered the arsonist
Moving production from Ukraine into an EU and NATO state removed it from the target set of a strike campaign and placed it inside the target set of a sabotage campaign. Both are real and the second is cheaper. Any manufacturer that has dispersed westward for safety has changed the threat it faces rather than reduced it, and the protective measures that answer a missile are not the ones that answer a man with a lighter.
The claim of responsibility is the novel element and should not be dismissed or accepted
A previously unknown group presenting itself as an anti-war movement has claimed the attempt and published a manifesto justifying arson against drone manufacturers as peace activism. That is either a genuine ideological actor, a cover identity for a state-directed operation, or an opportunist claiming someone else's plot. All three are live and the authorities have named none of them. A claim that supplies a non-state motive is exactly what a state sponsor would want to exist, which is a reason for care rather than a finding.
Charged as acting on order, with the orderer unnamed
The charge itself records that the three were acting on someone else's instruction. Slovak police framed the case within Russia's shadow war and the Russian embassy has denied it. What has been established is that a commissioning party exists; who it is has not been. The gap between those two statements is where every case in this pattern sits.
The reconnaissance was the visible part, as it usually is
A hand-drawn plan of the facility, notes, and a camera. Somebody attended the site, observed it and recorded it, using no technique that a member of staff could not have noticed. The incendiary stage is over in minutes; the reconnaissance stage lasts long enough to be seen, and it is the only phase in which a defender has time.
Further attempts against dispersed defence manufacturers are highly likely
The method is cheap, the recruits are expendable, the targets are fixed and publicly known, and the same week produced a suspected arson at an Estonian defence manufacturer. It is highly likely that further arson attempts against European defence production are made, and likely that they continue to use recruited foreign nationals rather than anyone traceable to a sponsor.
Set this beside Leyton, where a warehouse holding Starlink terminals and aid for Ukraine was burned by men recruited online and paid modestly. Same model, same target logic, two years apart and a thousand miles apart. The difference at Presov is that somebody was watching the recruits before they struck the match.
- If you have dispersed production for safety, reassess the threat you actually face now. Distance from a front line answers indirect fire. It does not answer arson, and the protective measures are entirely different.
- Treat the reconnaissance phase as the one you can affect. A hand-drawn plan means somebody stood and looked. Staff, neighbours and contractors are the sensors, and they need a route to report a person taking an interest.
- Plan for an incendiary attack from outside the fence. The realistic scenario is a fire started at the perimeter or through a window rather than a forced entry. Suppression, compartmentation and the ability to evacuate a shift matter more than access control here.
- Know how many people are on site at night. Police assessed a large-scale fire with about seventy present. Occupancy at the moment of attack is the figure that turns a property loss into a casualty event.
- Expect to be named publicly before you are attacked. Reporting indicates the company had been singled out by a pro-Kremlin figure on social media. Public hostility toward a named manufacturer is an indicator worth monitoring rather than ignoring.
- Do not let a claim of responsibility settle your assessment. An unknown group claiming an attack in the language of peace activism may be exactly what it says, or a cover. Record the claim, weigh the claimant's incentives, and wait.
- https://euobserver.com/233724/slovak-drone-factory-narrowly-escapes-russian-linked-napalm-arson-attack-as-police-arrest-three-foreign-suspects/
- https://kyivindependent.com/slovak-police-thwart-arson-plot-targeting-ukrainian-drone-factory-media-reports/
- https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-drone-plant-target-of-failed-arson-plot-in-slovakia-50636329.html
- https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/08/26/a-gasoline-and-polystyrene-mix-police-call-it-napalm-was-meant-for-a-ukrainian-drone-plant-in-slovakia/
- https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/slovak-prosecutor-reports-arson-targeted-ukrainian-drone-manufacturer-22011
- https://www.uawire.org/slovak-police-foil-arson-plot-at-ukrainian-drone-plant-near-presov
Compiled from open-source reporting for professional security discussion. Three people have been charged and none convicted; all are entitled to the presumption of innocence. The charge records that they acted on order, but the authorities have not identified who ordered the attack and no formal state attribution has been made. Slovak police placed the case in the context of Russia's shadow war; the Russian embassy in Bratislava has rejected the allegation as unproven. The nationalities of the suspects were reported by media rather than disclosed by Slovak police in their statement. A previously unknown group calling itself Global Citizens Against War 1984 has claimed responsibility in an email to a newspaper and an online manifesto; that claim is unverified and no authority has endorsed it. The identification of the seized mixture is a preliminary analysis. The legal classification may change as the investigation continues. This is a protective-security lessons-learned assessment, not an operational account.