An Estonian court is considering whether to extradite Estonians linked to a package bombing scheme organized by the Russian military intelligence service (GRU), ERR News reports.
The Harju County Court mulled on the 8th of October whether to extradite businessman Eldar Salmanov, who also holds a Russian passport, and his Estonian spouse Gelena Gusseva to Lithuania. The Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office has charged both with supporting terrorism. According to reports, the middle-aged couple took part in a GRU operation that resulted in packages containing explosives being placed on cargo planes.
In September, an international investigation revealed that major European cities only narrowly avoided a major disaster.
In the early morning of the 20th of July, 2024, a container caught fire at a DHL warehouse at Leipzig Airport. The shipment had just passed security screening, but as the flight was delayed, it had not yet been loaded onto the plane. A day later, another package caught fire at a DPD warehouse near Warsaw. It took 20 firefighters two hours to put out the flames, and nothing was left of the van containing the package. On the 2nd of July, a package on a pallet at a DHL warehouse outside Birmingham caught fire. At the same time, the Polish Security Service discovered a bomb in a similar shipment at a local courier service provider’s warehouse. The detonator had failed due to a fault with the bomb maker.
The wider public was initially not informed of the incidents.
Experts involved in the multi-national investigation now say it was a GRU-coordinated operation, and even by the standards of the current hybrid warfare situation, it was very daring.
Indre Makaraitytė, the head of the investigation unit at Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, told that the initial plan was likely for the bombs to explode during transatlantic flights.
Edward Lucas, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that the very fact that the issue was being discussed suggests that the GRU has managed to make to think about them. “Now we are wondering whether they are so ruthless and careless that they would be willing to shoot down a plane, killing everyone on board and possibly causing a disaster on the ground, or whether it was just an attempt at intimidation by detonating bombs on the ground,” Lucas said.
The whole thing sounds like a Cold War action movie. There are many unanswered questions. For example, it is still not known whether the bombs did not land on the planes by accident or whether they were intended to explode on the ground to cause confusion.
Both the investigation team and journalists traced the explosives to Estonia.
According to available information, it was Salmanov who initiated the movement of the packages.
Holger Roonemaa, head of the analytical journalism team at Delfi Meedia, said that Salmanov is quite well-known in Narva and its surroundings. The businessman, who provides logistics services, made his fortune by helping Russian state-owned companies arrange customs documentation so that they could transport goods. Thanks to his role in the transit business, Salmanov, who has lived in Narva all his life, has regularly appeared on television, and his partners have also included politicians. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the cargo transportation business has slowed down, but the businessman had already made a significant fortune.
Salmanov, who is currently in custody, has refused to comment, but has previously admitted that a contact in Russia asked him to send a package from Estonia. Runema said the businessman was trying to present himself as a helpful person who just wanted to do a good job and refused to reveal who asked him to forward the packages or how they got to him. Salmanov confirmed that he had asked his wife to send the package. Gusseva works in the customer service of the Transport Authority. On the 24th of June, 2024, Gusseva placed a package weighing several kilograms in a parcel machine. It first ended up in Riga, and then caused an explosion at a DHL warehouse. It was determined that the package contained electric massage pads, but it is not known whether the explosives were in the package at the time of sending or were placed in it later. The package ended up in an Omniva parcel machine and was removed by 62-year-old Vasiliy Kovacs. He took the package to Vilnius. The man’s lawyer indicated that the package contained ordinary things, and
his client knew nothing about explosives.
Makaraitytė explained that it is typical for GRU operations to recruit people who do not know each other, do not see the true scope of the operation, and sometimes do not even know that they are part of it: “The task may be simply to activate a device or deliver a package. They may not even know what is inside it – to them it is just a delivery.”
Roonemaa and Makaraitytė found that most of the men involved in the network either served in the Soviet Navy or worked with someone who did. The journalists do not believe that everyone knew what was in the packages, but at the same time none of those involved are completely innocent. An unregistered weapon and a device for blocking mobile signals were later found on Kovacs.
According to Makaraitytė, the bombs were activated in mid-July in Lithuania and distributed in four separate packages that were sent by different courier services.
Roonemaa said that initially the incidents were not linked to sabotage or GRU involvement.
This came a few months later, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the fires could be linked to sabotage by Russia.
On the 17th of September of this year, the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the GRU had carried out the sabotage. The operation was carried out by a special GRU unit, made up of former Soviet Navy officers, and aimed to carry out acts of sabotage in Western countries that support Ukraine. Media reports indicate that 15 people have now been charged, and at least one of the organizers is wanted.
Lucas noted that the GRU’s package operation is one of the most daring and dangerous in recent times. However, the journalist also added that the Russians have no value for human life, and recalled the Russian use of Novichok in the UK on the downed flight MH17.
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