A Russian Airline Bomb Plot? What To Know About Polish PM's Accusations

The accusation was as blunt as it was serious: Russia is plotting terror attacks against unspecified targets utilizing aircraft, Poland's prime minister said.

"I will not go into details, I can only confirm the validity of fears that Russia was planning acts of air terror, not only against Poland but against airlines around the world," Donald Tusk told a news conference on January 15.

Though shocking, the Polish leader's comments were not out of the blue: there's been a growing number of suspicious, alarming, unexplained incidents in recent months. Some involved international airlines, and allegations that Russia was seeking to plant secret explosives in cargo flights; some involving ships that have disrupted undersea cables.

In a growing number of European capitals, meanwhile, it's increasingly clear who the culprit is and what is going on: Moscow is waging a shadow campaign against the West.

The growing seriousness of the problem was underscored further by reports that U.S. intelligence officials intercepted communications from Russian military intelligence officials discussing the bomb plot and that President Joe Biden had instructed two top national-security advisers to warn off Russian officials.

Moscow has routinely denied Western accusations of terror attacks, including arson, break-ins, poisoning, and attacks on individuals in the West.

What You Need To Know

Last July, a package shipped from Lithuania unexpectedly ignited at a DHL storage facility in the eastern German town of Leipzig, sparking a fire. The blaze was contained quickly; damage was minimal. It wasn't the only one.

Around the same time, 1,300 kilometers to the west, a similar incendiary device ignited at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, England. It arrived on a DHL plane. Also at around the same time, a device at a transport company facility in Jablonow near the Polish capital of Warsaw also exploded and caught fire. It took firefighters two hours to put it out.

Taken together, the three fires traced a clear pattern -- someone was deliberating putting incendiary devices in cargo flights. It all set alarms sounding at law enforcement and intelligence agencies across Europe and North America.

Not Just Bombs

The incendiary packages coincided with news of another incident that's stoked suspicions.

In early 2024, Armin Papperger, the chief executive officer of German industrial giant Rheinmetall, was the subject of a foiled assassination plot, according to reports by the Financial Times, CNN, and The New York Times.

The company is one of the world's biggest producers of artillery and tank shells. More importantly, since Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the company has dramatically expanded production of shells for Ukraine.

U.S. officials informed Germany about the plot, The New York Times reported, prompting German intelligence services to provide security for Papperger.

There's also been a series of events at sea -- mainly the Baltic Sea -- in which various ships have broken or damaged undersea telecommunications or power cables.

Last month, Finnish authorities detained an oil tanker, Eagle S, which was sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt. Authorities later determined the ship had dragged its anchor and damaged a cable across the Gulf of Finland.

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Though the ships involved were not Russian -- they were flying "flags of convenience" from countries other than the country of ownership -- officials in Finland and elsewhere have accused them of belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet."

That's a fleet of vessels -- some unmarked, many using "flags of convenience" -- that the Kremlin has reportedly built up since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a way to get around Western sanctions. Most of Russia's oil is now being sold abroad via this shadow fleet, according to Ukrainian researchers.

The "shadow fleet" may also be helping Russia conduct intelligence surveillance. One report published after the Eagle S was detained said it was equipped with "special transmitting and receiving devices that were used to monitor naval activity."

"This year there were 500 suspicious incidents in Europe," Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said last month before a meeting of NATO ministers. "Up to 100 of them can be attributed to Russian hybrid attacks, espionage, influence operations."

What's Happened As A Result?

Earlier this month, Finnish authorities seized Eagle S, declaring it unseaworthy. Another Chinese-owned ship, the Yi Peng 3, was stopped, and later boarded, in international waters near Denmark and Sweden, amid suspicions that it had dragged its anchor and cut two telecom cables. The ship was ultimately released to continue sailing to Egypt.

In October, meanwhile, Poland's Prosecutor-General's Office issued a statement about the airline package devices, announcing that four people had been detained "for participation in an international sabotage-diversionary group," and was looking for two others.

"The group's activities consisted of sabotage and diversion related to sending parcels containing camouflaged explosives and dangerous materials via courier companies to European Union countries and Great Britain, which spontaneously ignited or detonated during land and air transport," a spokeswoman said. "The group's goal was also to test the transfer channel for such parcels, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada."

Hints of a wider plot were also alluded to by Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, who told lawmakers there had been a significant increase in Russian espionage and sabotage activities in Germany.

If the Leipzig package that ignited had started burning during a flight, Haldenwang told lawmakers in September, "it would have resulted in a crash".

Sometime after last August, as U.S. and European officials began working with top airline executives to implement new screening procedures for cargo flights, Biden ordered two of his top security officials -- CIA Director William Burns and national-security adviser Jake Sullivan -- to contact top aides to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and, according to the Times, warn them off.

U.S. intelligence agencies also obtained intercepts of conversations among top officials at the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU, the Times reported. The conversations described how the ignited packages -- which included small electronic consumer items -- constituted a test run for other efforts.

In October, the head of Britain's main domestic counterintelligence agency, MI5, specifically called out the GRU, saying there were on a "a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: We've seen arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness."

Hue And Cry

Though he gave no details, Tusk's comments, made alongside visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were striking given his prominence: the head of government lodging a public, incendiary allegation, all but accusing Moscow of terrorism.

They also echoed comments from other Western officials, who have said they suspect Russia of trying to wage a "shadow" campaign -- including sabotage, espionage, disinformation -- across Europe and North America. The goal? To destabilize the West and undermine its support for Ukraine, in its defense against the ongoing Russian invasion.

For its part, Russia has repeatedly and vocally denied any involvement in the aircraft cargo devices, or the shadow fleet cable damage. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the reporting about the airline sabotage plot an example of a "vague fabrication."