The crash of a DHL cargo plane in Lithuania could be a kind of “test” by Russia to “identify weaknesses,” Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer said on ARD, he was quoted as saying by Die Welt newspaper.
“We have already faced a similar situation this summer, and now there is a case that somehow fits into this model,” the inspector said. He said Russian “President” Vladimir Putin was creating a situation “that is not quite peace anymore, but not yet war” to test how far he could go.
DHL’s Boeing 737-800 crashed last Monday near Vilnius airport. There were four people on board – two pilots and two passengers. As a result of the crash, one person was killed. The aircraft went down near an apartment building.
Earlier, The New York Times sources warned that Russia could organize a large number of sabotage attacks in Europe and carry out attacks on military bases of the USA and its allies in response to Ukraine’s permission to hit Russian territory with long-range Western weapons.
Prior to that, DHL warehouses in the UK and Germany had experienced fires of electric massagers with a flammable magnesium-based substance inside. In particular, one of the fires occurred at Leipzig airport. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) sources in Western intelligence services linked these incidents to the actions of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Defense Ministry, which, in their opinion, was preparing sabotage in the EU.
At the same time, the WSJ interlocutors noted that if one of the sabotage activities of the Russian intelligence service led to a plane crash, it could provoke a serious escalation of the conflict between Russia and the West. They also admitted that they have no data on whether GRU operations are coordinated with the Kremlin.
European officials told Bloomberg that they were concerned about the growing number of sabotage attacks by Russia. At the same time, Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, admitted that Moscow’s widespread use of hybrid operations in Europe and the United States could make it necessary to invoke NATO’s collective defense clause.
