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According to The Wall Street JournalRussia is suspected of organizing the sending of incendiary devices aboard planes bound for the United States. Two modified packages, which caught fire in Europe, would have been part of a clandestine operation whose aim would be to hide them in cargo planes or passenger planes.
Tensions between Moscow and the West are rising a notch. Russia allegedly orchestrated the sending of incendiary devices aboard flights departing for the United States and Canada, according to information from the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal in an article published this Monday, November 4.
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The scheme came to light last July when in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England, two devices hidden in DHL packages caught fire, triggering an unprecedented alert. Inside: simple electric massagers tampered with to house a magnesium-based substance, whose extreme flammability could have transformed a plane into a flying torch.
Parcels sent from Lithuania
Investigations are quickly moving towards Moscow. According to European security experts, the GRU, Russian military intelligence, is behind these incendiary packages. The operation, it seems, was intended to “test the transfer channel of these packages, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada.” Consequences in the event of an explosion of such a package, “which would cause a large number of victims”, warns Pawel Szota, head of Polish foreign intelligence.
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In Lithuania, police arrested a suspect posing as Igor Prudnikov, but identified by his real name of Alexander Suranovas. Lithuanian authorities suspect him of having acted as a proxy for the Russian secret services. Meanwhile, in Poland, four other people were arrested in connection with the case. Polish authorities are working with other countries to try to apprehend two other suspects still at large.
“Unfounded traditional insinuations” for the Kremlin
These revelations, however, hardly surprise Western intelligence services, which have observed an upsurge in Russian sabotage operations for months. From the Baltic Sea to sensitive infrastructure in Western Europe, from oil pipelines to power grids, the signals are clear: Moscow is escalating threats.
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Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, rejected the accusations, denouncing “traditional, unfounded insinuations on the part of the media”. However, doubts persist. The incendiary devices transported by DHL would, according to German investigators, have put the planes in great danger, as conventional fire-fighting systems were not sufficient to control a magnesium fire in flight. In the absence of emergency measures, a fire on board could force a plane into a risky landing – a perilous operation, especially over the Atlantic.
