Western intelligence agencies suspect Russia of preparing arson attacks on planes flying to the US and Canada

Russia may have been plotting to set fires on board cargo and passenger planes bound for the United States and Canada, a Western intelligence source told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). They said devices designed for this purpose caught fire at DHL warehouses in the UK and Germany in July.

Western intelligence officials believe that the arsons were organized by the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Defense Ministry. The fires at a distribution warehouse in Birmingham and at Leipzig Airport were an attempt to test whether it was possible to start fires on board planes flying to North America, WSJ sources explained. The Polish National Prosecutor's Office said that Russian intelligence services were thus checking the channels for transmitting such packages to the United States and Canada.

Electric massagers containing a flammable magnesium-based substance caught fire at DHL warehouses. It would have been difficult to extinguish the fire after the magnesium caught fire using the systems available on board the plane, German police said. Experts said that if such items had caught fire on board the plane, it would have had to make an emergency landing, which is “difficult to do over the ocean.”

The WSJ's sources said they did not know whether the Russian intelligence operation had been sanctioned by the Kremlin. If such a sabotage had ended in a plane crash, it would have led to a serious escalation of the conflict between Russia and the West, the sources noted. According to the WSJ, Polish security forces detained four people on suspicion of preparing sabotage, whose identities have not been disclosed.