Moscow Behind Incendiary Packages Sent Across Europe, Lithuanian Official Says

Moscow is responsible for sending incendiary devices in packages from Lithuania to other countries in Europe, an adviser to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told local media Tuesday.

The accusations come a day after The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed Western security officials, reported that Russia was orchestrating a covert sabotage campaign that involved sending packages with incendiary devices on cargo and passenger planes. 

“We are telling our allies that it’s not random, it’s part of military operations,” Kestutis Budrys, an adviser to Nauseda, told Ziniu radio on Tuesday.

“We need to neutralize and stop it at the source, and the source is Russia’s military intelligence,” he was quoted as saying in a translation by Reuters.

Last month, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that packages burst into flames at distribution centers across the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland over the summer and had been traced back to Lithuania. Police in Poland arrested four people suspected of being involved.

Law enforcement authorities in Britain and Germany launched investigations into the incidents, with German officials saying a plane crash was narrowly avoided when a package caught fire at a DHL logistics hub in Leipzig.

The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed the reports.

“[Western media] very often carry out these unclear fakes,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday. “I think this is one of those fakes.”