Scholz guarantees that Berlin “will not make an accusation until it can be proven.” However, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, recalls that only in the last few days there has been the case of propaganda bots in the USA, interrupted GPS signals and cut data cables in the Baltic Sea: “All this cannot be a coincidence at the same time,” he argues.
German officials raised the hypothesis that the DHL crash, which crashed in Lithuania on Monday, was the result of sabotage or hybrid warfare.
The cargo plane was coming from Leipzig, Germany, and was supposed to land at Vilnius airport when it crashed one kilometer from the runway. The plane skidded on the ground for several hundred meters before hitting a house, Lithuanian authorities said.
Asked on Monday night whether the accident was the result of hybrid warfare, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted to public broadcaster ZDF: “We are looking at the issue closely, we cannot say at the moment, but it could be so – there are many forms of hybrid warfare that we are seeing in Germany.”
Scholz said that the cause of the accident “needs to be investigated closely”, assuring that Germany will not make any accusations “until it can prove it”.
Scholz’s comments come on the heels of similar statements from Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who, according to Reuters, told journalists at the G7 summit on Tuesday: “The fact is that we, together with our Lithuanian and Spanish, we now have to seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident (or) another hybrid incident that shows the volatile times we currently live in, even in central Europe.”
Baerbock added that several recent incidents fit the pattern of “destabilization and division” of Russia, noting that “thousands of bots of , interrupted GPS signals or even a cut data cables – all of these cannot be coincidences at the same time.”
Meanwhile, Lithuanian authorities played down the prospect of harmful activities, insisting that no evidence of sabotage had yet been discovered. “Our initial information does not indicate that we have to investigate more serious actions,” prosecutor Arturas Urbelis said in a statement on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
“We may find signs of other types of activity during the investigation,” he added.
According to Reuters, the US National Transportation Safety Board is sending its own personnel to help with the investigation, along with representatives from Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Video surveillance footage shows the plane descending, before disappearing from view behind a building. Moments later, a large fireball can be seen in the sky appearing behind the building, followed by a cloud of black smoke.
The aftermath of the accident near Vilnius International Airport. Lukas Balandis/BNS/Reuters
One crew member died in the accident. Three other people on board the flight, including the pilot, survived, along with 12 people who were in the house and were safely removed from the scene, according to Lithuanian authorities.
The head of Lithuania’s counterintelligence unit, Darius Jauniskis, told journalists at a press conference: “We cannot reject the possibility of terrorism… But at the moment we cannot make attributions or assign blame, because we do not have that information. ”
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the incendiary devices that ignited in Leipzig, Germany, and the United Kingdom in July were part of an effort to set fires aboard cargo and passenger flights bound for the United States. USA and Canada. Some European officials later supported these allegations, which Moscow denies to this day.
“I can say that this is part of the unconventional kinetic operations against NATO countries that are being carried out by the Russian military secret services,” Kestutis Budrys, national security advisor to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, told Reuters after the WSJ report.
DHL plane at Leipzig airport. In July, explosive devices exploded at DHL logistics centers in Leipzig and Birmingham, United Kingdom, the Wall Street Journal reported this month. Hendrik Schmidt/picture alliance/Getty Images
“We note that these operations are being intensified: their focus is changing (…) to damage infrastructure and actions that could end up killing people”, highlighted Budrys.
At a press conference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the WSJ report “unintelligible rumors that are never supported by any credible information.”
The cargo plane that crashed on Monday was a Swiftair plane “operating under contract for DHL,” the logistics company confirmed in a statement sent to CNN.
DHL said the plane “made a forced landing approximately one kilometer from VNO airport.” He confirmed that four people were on board. “The cause of the accident is still unknown and an investigation is ongoing,” DHL said.
The plane was a Boeing 737-400, according to a statement from Swiftair.
According to the mayor of Vilnius, Valdas Benkunskas, the plane narrowly missed directly hitting the house, crashing into a neighboring courtyard, as reported by the LRT.
Lithuanian police chief Arūnas Paulauskas said the incident was “most likely due to a technical failure or human error,” but that terrorism “cannot be excluded,” according to the LRT.
