Bojan Pancevski
Appearances
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
We are not going to put incendiary devices on Russian airplanes. We just don't do that. We're democracies. We operate under the rule of law. So it's, you know, it would seem that Western policymakers are in a pickle. And it's hard to see how this gets diffused anytime soon, unless there is a broader resolution of the conflict.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
So we were kind of exchanging notes on that and talking about other stuff. And then, you know, after a few cocktails, I just asked him, so what's keeping you busy now? And he was like, well, you know, among other things, this conspiracy to set airliners on fire.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
One early incident was a fishing thrower in the Arctic Sea. It cut a vital internet cable.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
In Prague, for example, a bunch of civilians set buses and other civilian infrastructure on fire. A warehouse was set on fire in Britain. And the list goes on and on and on.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Russia is suspected to be behind many of these attacks. In some cases, there is evidence. There is so-called signal intelligence quite often from Western intelligence services, predominantly American and British, that find kind of chatter in the ether that proves, and they have other evidence that are not obviously sharing with us.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Other cases are basically sort of looks like a duck, talks like a duck, but it's very difficult to obtain evidence that would hold in court.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Quite often these people are sort of students. They are sometimes refugees in Poland. There was a group of Ukrainian refugees, actually Russian-speaking Ukrainian refugees, who were paid to put out cameras on the railway. And it turned out they were actually working for Russian intelligence and they were doing their bidding in a way that seemed very naive.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Europe responded to the war in Ukraine by essentially kicking out most, if not all, of the Russian spies that were operating on their territory.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
And in one stroke, the Russians kind of lost that vital capacity that they've had. Once that happened, the Russians had to somehow supplement that lost capacity. And what they came up with was a very interesting and in the end, very, very efficient way of operating. They simply threw the kitchen sink at it. They started using civilians. They just used everyone they could get.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
They use the Telegram channel quite a lot, but also other channels, other social media. And basically they offer them money. They wire them money, sometimes in Bitcoin. And the person doesn't really know who's at the other end.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Well, the head of the British intelligence service, the MI5, put it succinctly. He said the goal is to create mayhem on the streets of Europe and Britain. And I think that kind of sums it up. Create chaos in order to create panic, in order to create insecurity, in order to kind of
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
deter European governments in order to weaken the resolve to support Ukraine, and also in order to force countries like Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, and so on, to deploy vast capacities of intelligence gathering, the police, the army, etc., into investigating these cases that happen in their waters or in their soil.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
What I've been told by multiple intelligence and security officials is that the broad brief has definitely been issued by the Kremlin, meaning it has been approved by Vladimir Putin.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Essentially, the authorities in countries like Germany, like the Czech Republic to an extent, the Nordic countries, they've come to the conclusion that if they do talk about it in public and if they do reveal to their respective populations that Russia is able to operate inside their countries, that this would kind of weaken the resolve, the popular resolve to support Ukraine.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
So we pieced the puzzle together and we found out that the Russians had come up with an ingenious way to smuggle undetectable incendiary devices and put them on airplanes.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
And Ukraine receives from these European countries enormous financial support. political and military support.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
First, it's a tiny little fire. The thing goes off. And then literally two seconds later, the entire thing is set alight, the entire forklift.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Well, magnesium, that certain type of magnesium-based mixture burns at extreme high temperature. And also it cannot be extinguished with the firefighting systems that exist on commercial airliners. because magnesium can even burn underwater and it develops incredibly high temperatures.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
It basically, it was used, if you remember these old documentaries by people like Jean-Jacques Cousteau, the great French marine explorer. Up until the 70s, I think divers were using magnesium flares even underwater when they were diving in the kind of dark waters. So it's extremely dangerous, extremely efficient.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Yeah, I've spoken to veteran intelligence operatives, police officers, politicians, historians, and this was not even happening at the height of the Cold War. Russia, or rather then the Soviet Union, wasn't attempting conspiracies that might end in kind of mass casualties of Western civilians.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
They're set alight in a way that's not traceable. So if you put that device, or at least at that time, had you put that device through a normal airport scanner, X-ray or whatever, it wouldn't have been recognized as any kind of incendiary device.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
German investigators recreated these devices with the components they found in a forensic lab, and they tested them in all imaginable scenarios. And they found that if an airliner was targeted and one of these devices would go off in the cargo and the airliner was flying over Europe, it would have time passed. probably to land, to do an emergency landing at the nearest airport.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
But had this happened over the ocean, over the Atlantic Ocean, for example, then they wouldn't have time to land and the airplane would have been lost.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
They confirmed that it happened. They confirmed that they worked together with the relevant authorities to get to the bottom of it. And they confirmed that they've boosted their security protocols. DHL is a German company. The German government issued a detailed warning to DHL and companies like DHL to basically increase security because they are being targeted.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
And some of them even admitted that, yes, we did cover it up. There was a brief to cover it up when we covered it up. So, you know, even in that kind of circle, in the security establishment, in the military, in the police to an extent, the intelligence community, there are a lot of people who think enough is enough and we shouldn't be kind of sweeping this under the carpet.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
Poland is also becoming much, much more outspoken. They're very willing to attribute things to Russia. Germany is perhaps shifting. You know, I think this, to me, to my mind, means that the security establishment has had enough and is trying to kind of jolt people into awareness of what's happening and what are the stakes and what are the risks that we're all basically exposed to now.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
It's the most frightening, frightening incident or conspiracy that we've learned. And obviously the scary part is that we only learned about this because I had that late night meeting in a hotel bar, having cocktails with someone who knew about it. There might be other things like that out there that we don't know about.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
I think the assumption is, the fear is that it's just going to get worse because the level of aggression has been steadily rising in the past. It's almost three years now that the war in Ukraine has been going on.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
And unlike during the Cold War, when there was a clear set of rules of engagement between the two blocs, between the two superpowers, and both of them were wary of going too far and triggering a confrontation that might end up in a nuclear holocaust. I think we've lost that fear.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
So yeah, we're in a world where everything goes from launching missiles into Ukraine to cutting cables to, you know, arson attacks on factories and buses in otherwise peaceful European capitals.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
That's absolutely true in my experience, yes. In the course of my reporting in the past almost three years, that's definitely become apparent to me. And also this discrepancy in the way we see the conflict, in the way we perceive the standoff with Russia. There is no sense that we are an actual all-out war with Russia, whereas on the Russian side, they do think that and they behave accordingly.
The Journal.
The Suspected Russian Plot to Set Airplanes on Fire
So unless there is a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and unless perhaps the West takes a more decisive posture and warns the Russians about some sort of retaliation, it's difficult to see how this will be diffused. You know, I've spoken to a number of very senior politicians who are well briefed on this matter. And a number of them told me, well, what are we expected to do?