“The threat of a catastrophic mistake is evident,” says Alejandro Mayorkas
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President Joe Biden’s advisers sent a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin after believing the Russians were going to bring the war in Ukraine to the United States, according to a New York Times report.
This summer, cargo shipments began to catch fire at German, British, and Polish airports and warehouses. Both Washington and the Europeans believed that the Russians were responsible.
In August, the White House grew concerned that the Russians were also planning to bring their sabotage to the U.S., according to secretly obtained intelligence.
The challenge is how to warn Putin, who has not spoken to Biden since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In briefings in the Situation Room, Biden’s aides probed conversations between senior officials in the Russian military’s intelligence agency, the G. R. U. describing how customer shipments were set on fire, like a small electronic massager, as evidence, according to the New York Times.
After the Russians figured out how the packages made it past screening procedures and how long they took to ship, the plan was to send them on planes to the U.S. and Canada, where they would lead to fires after being unloaded.
The top worry was cargo planes, but passenger planes at times take smaller packages in their cargo holds if there’s space to spare.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the newspaper that “the risk of a catastrophic mistake is evident, as those devices could catch fire on a fully loaded plane. “
Mayorkas implemented new restrictions on goods bound for the United States in August. When the warnings resurfaced in October, Mayorkas urged executives at the largest airlines operating in the United States to take additional steps to ensure there is no mid-flight crisis. Some measures have been communicated to the public, while others have not.
White House officials were not sure whether Putin had ordered the plot or if he even was aware. It was possible he had not been made aware, but at this point, a major effort was started to push him to put an end to it.
Similar to when the United States believed Russia was contemplating installing a nuclear weapon in Ukraine in October 2022, Biden dispatched national security adviser Jake Sullivan and the CIA. Director William Burns will have to warn Putin’s advisors. Multiple avenues were needed to ensure the message reached Putin, a senior official told the newspaper.
The warning stipulated that if Russia’s sabotage led to a mass casualty event in the air or on the ground, the U.S. would hold Russia accountable for “enabling terrorism.” While Sullivan and Burns didn’t state what shape the response would take, they did say it would mean that the shadow war between Russia and the U.S. would reach new heights.
The shadow war continues every day, and Russia is said to be trying to use sabotage to break the will of NATO countries towards Ukraine, but without this leading to a war with NATO itself. even.
This led to a new way of life in Europe, ending the sense of security that emerged after the Cold War. The search for possible acts of sabotage continues hourly in airports, seaports and below the surface, as well as on the streets of major European cities.
But the fires across Europe have stopped for now, with the message getting through to the Russian leader, officials told The New York Times. What remains unknown is whether Putin halted the plots or for how long they may remain on pause. Officials also told the paper that it’s possible that Russia is simply using the time to build better devices.
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