Russian spies are thought to have hidden an incendiary device inside a parcel loaded on a plane heading for Britain, before it dramatically burst into flames hours just later at a warehouse.
Counter-terrorism police are said to be investigating Russia’s involvement in the terrifying incident, which happened at a DHL centre in Minworth, Birmingham on July 22.
The revelation comes just a day after German intelligence warned a similar incident in Leipzig, also in late-July, came close to causing a fatal plane crash.
Thomas Haldenwang, head of Germany’s intelligence service, said on Tuesday that a disaster was narrowly averted after a parcel ignited on the ground at the DHL logistics centre in Leipzig rather than mid-air as intended.
The plane had been delayed, with experts warning there could have been a very different outcome had it taken off on time.
It remains unclear who the parcel was sent to or the culprit behind the attack, though security services are working on the basis that Putin’s agents were involved in the near-crash.
Mr Haldenwang told a Bundestag committee that had the package ignited after the flight had taken off, the plane would have crashed.
Kremlin aggression is ‘putting people’s lives at risk’ as well as affecting ‘all areas of our free society’, he said.
Germany’s foreign intelligence service chief Bruno Kahl said that Putin was likely to further ‘test the West’s red lines’, amid the increase in tensions between Russia and Nato over the despot’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said there was now a willingness at a ‘previously unknown level’ to attempt sabotage from the Kremlin.
74 views