European intelligence firms believe that Russias GRU military intelligence service lagged a series of freight package explosions at airports in Germany, Poland and Britain last summer, German media reported Wednesday.The coordinated attacks, which took place over 3 days in July 2024, belonged to a worldwide sabotage campaign involving a minimum of 10 people, according to a joint examination by German media outlets WDR, NDR and Sddeutsche Zeitung.On July 20, a parcel caught fire at Leipzig Airport in Germany.
A comparable incident took place at Warsaws global airport the next day, followed by a third airport fire on July 22 in Birmingham, England.
A fourth plan intended for Poland was obstructed before it exploded.Investigators found that the 4 packages, all of which were traced to Lithuania, contained magnesium-based explosives hidden in products like cosmetics tubes and sex toys.European intelligence agencies have actually since concluded that the operation was coordinated by a group of GRU representatives, consisting of high-ranking workers, WDR, NDR and Sddeutsche Zeitung reported.One of the supposed organizers is GRU Colonel Denis Smolyaninov, who was sanctioned by the EU in December 2024.
Rather than relying solely on qualified operatives, the GRU supposedly hired civilians described as non reusable agents through messaging apps, using money for relatively harmless tasks.One of those recruits was a 27-year-old Ukrainian man living in Katowice, Poland, who has actually because been detained.
According to investigators, he drove the bundles to Lithuania, where he activated the explosives timers and handed them to a Lithuanian national determined as Aleksandr S., who allegedly sent out the parcels.In early August 2024, another Ukrainian male in Poland, identified as Viacheslav C., sent out two more bundles including tracking gadgets rather than dynamites to the U.S.
and Canada.
Prosecutors believe the devices were intended to help map out shipping paths for possible future operations.Aleksandr S.and Viacheslav C.
were apprehended and now face charges of participating in sabotage on behalf of a foreign state.The Russian Embassy in Berlin has rejected the allegations, calling them fear and conspiracy theories.According to The New York Times, Washington released a cautioning to President Vladimir Putin through then-CIA Director William Burns and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that it would hold Moscowresponsible for enabling terrorism if the sabotage caused casualties in the U.S.
The bundle surges in Europe have actually considering that ceased.