Incendiary package ignites at DHL hub (Leipzig, Germany)

In late July 2024, an incendiary device concealed in a parcel ignited at a DHL air-cargo hub at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany, a key node in DHL's European network. The package had been shipped from the Baltic region and was awaiting transfer when it caught fire on the ground, setting alight a freight container before it could be loaded onto an aircraft. According to Germany's domestic intelligence service (the BfV), the connecting flight's delay was decisive: officials assessed that only the aircraft being on the ground, rather than in flight, prevented far greater damage.

The Leipzig fire was not isolated. A near-identical parcel ignited on July 22, 2024 at a DHL warehouse in Minworth, near Birmingham, England, prompting a British counterterrorism investigation. Reporting indicated the devices were disguised within ordinary consumer goods and were designed to ignite in transit. Germany's Federal Prosecutor opened an investigation on suspicion of terrorism, while Western officials described the parcels as a probable test run aimed at smuggling incendiary devices onto cargo or passenger aircraft bound for North America. In November 2024, Polish prosecutors confirmed arrests in connection with a network that allegedly tested a channel for sending such parcels toward the United States and Canada.

Western security officials, including in Germany, Britain and Poland, have assessed the Leipzig and Birmingham fires as part of a coordinated sabotage campaign attributed to Russian military intelligence (the GRU), describing it as a probable test run for igniting fires aboard transatlantic cargo flights. MI5 Director General Ken McCallum publicly accused the GRU of seeking to 'generate mayhem' across Europe. Moscow denied involvement, dismissing the reports as fabrication. No court has issued a final verdict establishing Russian state responsibility, so the attribution remains an official assessment rather than a formal judicial finding.