On Tuesday, the 5th of November, Kestutis Budrys, advisor to the Lithuanian President, said that Russia was responsible for the shipments of explosive packages from Lithuania to European countries, as NATO countries expressed concern that Moscow’s sabotage almost caused a plane crash and Western intelligence agencies had previously linked Russia to various sabotage activities across Europe to destabilise its Ukrainian allies, according to Reuters and the BBC.
The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported in October that the explosive packages that caught on fire at courier depots in the UK, Germany and Poland in July originated in Lithuania.
The UK and Germany have investigated parcel fires in warehouses in Birmingham and Leipzig, with the head of the German domestic intelligence agency (BfV) saying they were lucky the parcel caught fire in the warehouse and not in the air.
“We are telling our allies that this is not an accident, but part of the military operations,” Budrys told Žiniu Radio on Tuesday.
“We have to neutralise and stop this at the source, and the source is Russian military intelligence.”
Meanwhile, Arvydas Pocius, head of the Parliament’s National Security and Defence Committee, has previously said that this is part of a campaign of hybrid attacks aimed at “causing chaos, panic and mistrust”.
Poland announced in October that it had detained a group of foreign intelligence saboteurs, four individuals, in an investigation linked to the sending of explosive packages by courier to European Union countries and the UK as part of a plan with the ultimate aim of sending such packages to the US and Canada.
Poland also closed the Russian consulate in Poznan on suspicion of Russian attempts at sabotage.
Western officials believe that the fires broke out in electrical massage machines containing a “magnesium-based” substance.
Ken McCallum, Director General of the British Security Service (MI5), said in October that Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, was trying to cause “chaos” across the UK and Europe.
He said Russian secret agents had carried out “arson, sabotage and other dangerous activities” after the UK had helped Ukraine in Russia’s war.
DHL has stepped up security across Europe to protect its network, staff, premises and customer shipments following recent cargo fires, a DHL spokeswoman said a few weeks ago.