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A series of par­cel fires tar­get­ing couri­er com­pa­nies in Poland, Ger­many and the UK were dry runs aimed at sab­o­tag­ing flights to the US and Cana­da, Pol­ish pros­e­cu­tors say.

Katarzy­na Calow-Jaszews­ka revealed late last month that four peo­ple had been arrest­ed and author­i­ties across Europe were inves­ti­gat­ing the incidents.

West­ern secu­ri­ty offi­cials have told US media they believe the fires were part of an orches­trat­ed cam­paign by Russia’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence agency, the GRU.

Rus­sia denies being behind acts of sab­o­tage. But it is sus­pect­ed to have been behind oth­er attacks on ware­hous­es and rail­way net­works in EU mem­ber states this year, includ­ing in Swe­den and in the Czech Republic.

Ms Calow-Jaszews­ka said in a state­ment that a group of for­eign intel­li­gence sabo­teurs had been involved in send­ing parcels con­tain­ing hid­den explo­sives and dan­ger­ous mate­ri­als via couri­er com­pa­nies. The parcels then spon­ta­neous­ly burst into flames or blew up.

West­ern offi­cials believe the fires orig­i­nat­ed in elec­tric mas­sage machines con­tain­ing a ​“mag­ne­sium-based” substance.

Mag­ne­sium-based fires are hard to put out, espe­cial­ly on board a plane.

“The group’s goal was also to test the trans­fer chan­nel for such parcels, which were ulti­mate­ly to be sent to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and Cana­da,” Ms Calow-Jaszews­ka said.

On three days in July, fires broke out in a con­tain­er due to be loaded on to a DHL car­go plane in the Ger­man city of Leipzig, at a trans­port com­pa­ny near War­saw, and at Min­worth near Birm­ing­ham, UK, involv­ing a pack­age described as an incen­di­ary device.

The inci­dent at Jablonow near War­saw took two hours to extin­guish, accord­ing to Pol­ish reports.

UK offi­cials have giv­en few details about the Min­worth fire on 22 July. Last month the Guardian news­pa­per report­ed that counter-ter­ror­ism police were inves­ti­gat­ing whether Russ­ian spies plant­ed a device in a par­cel that lat­er caught fire at a DHL ware­house. The par­cel is believed to have arrived by air.

Ken McCal­lum, head of the UK’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency MI5, said last month that Russ­ian secret agents had car­ried out ​“arson, sab­o­tage and more dan­ger­ous actions con­duct­ed with increas­ing reck­less­ness” after the UK had helped Ukraine in Rus­si­a’s war.

In Ger­many, the head of the domes­tic intel­li­gence agency (BfV) has said it was only by a stroke of for­tune that the Leipzig device had not ignit­ed in mid-air.

BfV head Thomas Halden­wang has described the device that caught fire at DHL’s logis­tics hub at Leipzig-Halle air­port as sus­pect­ed Russ­ian sabotage.

The pack­age is thought to have arrived from Lithua­nia and its onward flight was delayed.

The device that caught fire in Min­worth is also under­stood to have come from Lithua­nia, where the head of the par­lia­men­t’s nation­al secu­ri­ty and defence com­mit­tee, Arvy­das Pocius, said it was part of an ongo­ing cam­paign of hybrid attacks aimed at ​“caus­ing chaos, pan­ic and mistrust”.

DHL has increased secu­ri­ty since the recent freight fires. ​“DHL Express has tak­en mea­sures in all Euro­pean coun­tries to pro­tect its net­work, its employ­ees and facil­i­ties, as well as its cus­tomers’ ship­ments,” a spokes­woman said a few weeks ago.

Poland’s gov­ern­ment has already respond­ed to alleged Russ­ian sab­o­tage, with For­eign Min­is­ter Radoslaw Siko­rs­ki announc­ing the clo­sure of a Russ­ian con­sulate in Poz­nan and threat­en­ing to expel the Russ­ian ambas­sador if it fails to bring an end to its attacks.

Rus­si­a’s for­eign min­istry con­demned the move as ​“a hos­tile step that will be met with a painful response”.

https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk/​n​e​w​s​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​c​0​7​9​1​2​l​xx33o