DHL representatives have confirmed that packages which caused a fire at warehouses in Germany were sent from Lithuania.
“We have now updated our security protocols and procedures in response to the latest recommendations from authorities across Europe,” said Mindaugas Pivoriūnas, managing director of DHL Lietuva, confirming that there have been two incidents at the company.
“We comply with them at all times and their compliance and enforcement is confirmed by regular audits by aviation security and other authorities,” he added.
LRT.lt reported last week that two self-igniting mechanisms shipped from Lithuania caused fires in a logistics centre in Leipzig, Germany in July. The incident is being investigated as a deliberate act.
At the time, Deutsche Welle reported that its sources did not rule out a Russian sabotage operation.
Following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, various acts of sabotage linked to Moscow have spread to Western countries, including Lithuania.
“This is the result of hybrid attacks,” Arvydas Pocius, chairman of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence, told LRT.lt.
In January this year, a monument to the partisan leader Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas in Merkinė, southern Lithuania, was covered with paint. Subsequently, two people were arrested in Latvia and Estonia on suspicion of defacing several memorials, most likely on the instructions of the Russian secret services.
In May 2024, an Ikea warehouse in Vilnius was set on fire, and nine people were subsequently detained in Poland who, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, were involved in acts of sabotage in Poland and other countries on behalf of the Russian services.
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His statement suggested that the group might have been involved in the arson attack in Vilnius.
“Without going into details, I think that this is an attack on the security of our countries to cause chaos, panic and mistrust,” said Pocius.
Suspects who attacked Leonid Volkov, a Russian opposition activist living in Vilnius, were also arrested in Poland. The crime was also linked to the Russian secret service. Meanwhile, similar acts of sabotage are taking place in other European countries.
So far, Lithuanian authorities are not releasing more details about the person arrested in connection with the DHL parcels.
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