WSJ: Russian special services were preparing terrorist attacks on airplanes in the United States

The devices that ignited in branches of the courier company DHL in Germany and Great Britain in July 2024 were supposed to get on the US planes. Agents of the Russian Federation sent dangerous parcels.

This was reported by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing sources in Western intelligence services.

In October 2024, the National Prosecutorʼs Office of Poland arrested four people. They were accused of participating in terrorist operations on the orders of the Russian special services. According to the investigation, the perpetrators sent parcels with explosives that self-ignited or detonated on the way to the countries of the European Union and Great Britain.

Such packages caught fire at DHL centers in Leipzig (Germany) and Birmingham (England). The investigation found that the devices that were supposed to be on civilian or cargo planes were electric massagers filled with a flammable magnesium-based substance. Interlocutors of the publication say that the parcels "were part of a wider Russian sabotage campaign" against Washington and its allies.

Western intelligence officials told the WSJ that the two packages at DHL offices were "trial". They had to figure out how to get the devices on board flying to North America.

"If the devices had ignited not in warehouses, but in airplanes, such an attack by Moscow would have become a serious escalation. Iʼm not sure that Russiaʼs political leaders realize the consequences if one of these packages exploded, causing mass casualties," said the head of Polandʼs foreign intelligence Pawel Szota.

Representatives of the special services of other countries confirm that Moscow is behind the sending of the parcels. It is about its foreign intelligence unit — the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU).

• This is not the first time that agents of the Russian special services have resorted to subversive activities. In the spring of 2024, the SBU counterintelligence prevented four terrorist attacks in Kyiv, which were to take place on May 9. In the capital, agents of the Russian GRU were detained, who were installing explosive devices in construction hypermarkets and near one of the cafes.
• And in 2019, The New York Times wrote that a special unit engaged in sabotage operations in Europe has been operating as part of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Federation for at least 10 years. The unit is classified, so not all GRU operatives have information about it.

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