Express services are victims of sabotage! This or something similar was the headline in much of the media in the summer of 2024. Since then, the topic has largely disappeared from the public stage as security measures by DHL, DPD and the relevant authorities have been stepped up. Meanwhile, facts prove that the series of attacks was carried out on behalf of the Russian military intelligence service, GRU.
To recap: it began in JUL24, when a DHL air cargo container filled with dangerous goods burned on the apron of Leipzig-Halle Airport. This was followed by fires at the DHL freight center in Birmingham and a parcel from integrator DPD that burnt to cinders in Jablonowo, Poland. A security check revealed that an incendiary device containing magnesium was hidden in another shipment. Particularly perfidious: magnesium continues to burn even under water, as evidenced by using magnesium torches to provide light during dives. The above-mentioned DHL shipment had been handed over to the integrator’s station at Vilnius Airport, with reference to a Russian e-mail contact as sender. Despite routine security checks, the detonators and incendiary devices remained undetected at Vilnius Airport. Accompanying documents listed massage cushions, cosmetics and sex toys as the contents of the packages. They were addressed to fictitious recipients in the UK and Canada, although the Canadian shipment did not contain any incendiary devices in contrast to the UK bound packages. Apparently, their role was to test transcontinental transport chains.
GRU is the culprit
What was already suspected by experts following the parcel’s ignitions in Leipzig and Birmingham, has now been confirmed through investigations jointly conducted by security authorities in Poland, Lithuania, Germany, the UK and Canada: The Russian military service Glawnoje Raswedywatelnoje Uprawlenije (GRU), Russian: Главное разведывательное управление (ГРУ), is responsible for the series of parcel attacks. This is the result of the evaluation of numerous posts on relevant online portals by a research group of several renowned German media, including WDR, NDR and daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, supported by statements given in court by the saboteurs and their arrested backers, especially in Poland and Lithuania.
Single use agents
And this is what is known so far: Around ten people were involved in the specific attacks on DHL and DPD courier shipments. In the investigators’ report, their names are indicated: Mastermind was GRU agent, Denis Smolyanin, a specialist in psychological warfare. He recruited accomplices in various EU countries via his Telegram channel. They were told that after the crimes had successfully been committed, they would be paid in cryptocurrencies. Two of the perpetrators, Vladislav D. and Alexandr S. are now imprisoned in Lithuania and Poland respectively. The head of a Bulgarian group of GRU agents, Alexandr B., was arrested in Bosnia.
Criminal triangular relationship
For the sabotage operations, the GRU, Putin’s special unit for terrorism, used so-called local single use agents, i.e. people who were prepared to carry out assassinations for a reasonable material reward. Since petty criminals did the dirty jobs, the GRU hoped to conceal its role as the mastermind of the sabotage operations. After all, the purchased actors were not members of Putin’s secret service club. The close interrelation between the Kremlin, perpetrators and backers, was proven by the Europe-wide arrest of more than 50 saboteurs and their middlemen at the instigation of the Lithuanian secret service, VSD. According to findings, the suspects are easily replaceable middlemen, but not key figures in the sabotage operations.
Ringing the alarm bell
The Lithuanian investigators now have numerous documents and statements from suspects detained in Poland and Lithuania on file, that clearly prove that the disposable agents were acting on behalf of the Kremlin. The coordinated sabotage actions show that “they are part of Putin’s hybrid war against Western civilization. We must wake up and finally understand this connection,” says Darius Jauniškis, ringing the alarm bells. He was head of the Lithuanian secret service, VSD, until last March. Since 29APR25, the 56-year-old is Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
