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Russia plotted to put incendiary devices aboard passenger aircraft bound for Canada and the U.S., The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
The newspaper said Western security officials “believe that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies.”
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The RCMP and Global Affairs Canada did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The devices ignited at DHL logistics hubs in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England this past July, according to The Wall Street Journal. “The explosions set off a multinational race to find the culprits.”
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The newspaper is reporting that “investigators and spy agencies in Europe have figured out how the devices — electric massagers implanted with a magnesium-based flammable substance — were made and concluded that they were part of a wider Russian plot.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, security officials are saying the devices, “sent to the U.K. from Lithuania, appear to have been a test run to figure out how to get such incendiary devices aboard planes bound for North America.”
Polish authorities, the newspaper reported, have arrested four people in connection with the fires and “charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency.
A Kremlin spokesman told The Wall Street Journal: “We have never heard any official accusations” of Russian involvement.
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