Investigators detail Russia’s attempts blow up airliners over Europe
An international investigation has uncovered a sprawling Russian campaign of state-sponsored terrorism that pushed bombs disguised as consumer goods through Europe’s commercial courier networks. Conducted by VSquare and partners in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and The Insider, the inquiry reveals how Moscow’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, directed a terror plot designed to ignite fires, sow fear, and disrupt Western aid to Ukraine.
The findings emerged after Lithuanian prosecutors, faced with detailed questions from reporters, moved to preempt publication by naming three suspects tied to the plot. The case shows not only the brazen reach of Russian operatives but also their callous willingness to endanger thousands of civilians in order to advance the Kremlin’s war.
A Chain of Arrests
On March 1, 2025, Latvia’s State Security Service stormed a rural home in Vidzeme and arrested 62-year-old Ukrainian national Vasily Kovacs. His nephews, Roman and Vadim Borsuk, were detained the same day in Vilnius while traveling to Poland. Soon after, Riga police picked up 73-year-old former Soviet submariner Aleksandr Katser.
Authorities suspected this unlikely group—elderly pensioners and two young refugees—of helping transport deadly devices across the Baltics in the summer of 2024. What they carried looked harmless: cosmetics, sex toys, and Chinese-made massage pillows. Hidden inside was nitromethane and timers. The purpose was not smuggling. It was terrorism.
Explosions Across Europe
The parcels first revealed their deadly nature on July 20, 2024, when a container burst into flames at DHL’s massive Leipzig hub. Seven thousand employees work there, moving thousands of tons of cargo daily. Investigators later confirmed the blaze came from packages stuffed with incendiaries.
Less than a day later, a second shipment caught fire inside a truck trailer near Warsaw, forcing twenty firefighters to battle flames for two hours. On July 22, a third parcel exploded at DHL’s transport warehouse in Birmingham, England. Only luck prevented a mid-air catastrophe.
“It was just a happy coincidence that the package caught fire on the ground, not in flight,” Germany’s domestic intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang admitted.
Polish security services intercepted a fourth parcel before detonation. Inside one massage pillow they found a functioning bomb—timer, ignition device, and explosive chemical. This was no crude stunt. It was a coordinated terror campaign.
Terror by Telegram
Investigators traced the network to the GRU, Russia’s military spy agency long linked to assassinations and poisonings. Here, the agency outsourced its terror to petty criminals and aging Soviet veterans, controlled remotely via Telegram. The handler called himself “Jarik Deppa.” In reality, he was Yaroslav Mikhailov, a 37-year-old Russian trafficker of explosives and radioactive materials, wanted by Moscow’s own FSB before being absorbed into the GRU.
Mikhailov’s instructions turned Europe’s courier industry into a conveyor belt for bombs.
Ex-convict Vyacheslav “Ponchik” Chebanenko divided the payload into four parcels inside a Vilnius Airbnb. Lithuanian fraudster Aleksandras Šuranovas, previously linked to a Russian-run pyramid scheme, attempted to forward them to Poland and Britain. When he failed to find the address, the bombs were reassembled and pushed along a surreal route: by car, by tourist bus from Moldova, and even by Lexus abandoned in a Soviet-era garage. A young Ukrainian, Vladyslav Derkavets—already convicted for laundering money into Bitcoin—reactivated the devices and lodged them at DHL and DPD under false names. The first blast came the very next day.
Terror Strategy, Not “Sabotage”
The International Institute for Strategic Studies notes Russian sabotage operations quadrupled between 2023 and 2024. But this case cannot be dismissed as sabotage alone. These were bombs planted in ordinary freight, deliberately routed through civilian hubs, with no regard for passenger planes, warehouse workers, or bystanders. It was terrorism, plain and simple—terror meant to frighten European publics, disrupt NATO supply lines, and demonstrate that Russia could strike anywhere.
Mikhailov, investigators reveal, also oversaw arson attacks: a Warsaw shopping center fire that destroyed 1,300 stores, and an IKEA blaze in Vilnius. Both were test runs, intended to terrorize populations while probing Europe’s vulnerabilities. European services now link these attacks, the courier bombs, and even a suspicious fire at a Leroy Merlin store in Poland to a single GRU-run terror network.
Accountability and Resistance
The investigation shows how Russia relies on criminal proxies, long-dormant Soviet ties, and disposable recruits to wage war far beyond Ukraine’s frontlines. Some of the operatives are already jailed in Poland and Lithuania. Others, like Mikhailov, remain at large, hiding under false identities. But the multinational probe, coordinated through Eurojust, has disrupted at least one branch of Moscow’s terror machine.
The broader message is stark. Russia is not just fighting in Donbas or launching missiles at Kyiv. It is waging terror warfare inside Europe itself—burning shopping centers, seeding bombs in courier depots, and gambling with civilian lives to intimidate democracies. This is not espionage, not sabotage, not deniable mischief. It is terrorism directed by the Russian state.
Until it is treated as such—and punished accordingly—the Kremlin will continue the expansion of its global terror.
