Biden Administration Warns Putin After Suspicious Russian Cargo Shipments Burst into Flames in Europe

The Biden administration issued a stern warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin after pallets of cargo from Russia burst into flames at European warehouses, raising alarms about potential sabotage, The New York Times reported Monday.

“In a series of Situation Room briefings, President Biden’s top aides reviewed details of conversations among top officials of the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence arm, who were describing shipments of consumer products that burst into flames — in one case, a small electronic massager — as a test run,” wrote David Sanger.

The apparent goal, once the Russians refined their methods, was to send sabotaged cargo on planes bound for the U.S. and Canada, where fires would ignite after the packages were unloaded. American officials detected the suspicious shipments at warehouses in the U.K., Germany, and Poland, triggering an urgent response.

The White House scrambled to assess the scope of the threat and delivered a direct warning to Putin to abandon the plot. As U.S. airports and airlines intensified efforts to safeguard against sabotaged cargo, officials faced a critical question: Was Putin aware of or directly involved in the scheme, or was it the work of rogue elements within Russian intelligence?

“Behind the scenes, White House officials were struggling to understand whether Mr. Putin had ordered or was aware of the plot — or if he had been kept in the dark,” the report stated. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns utilized multiple channels to convey a stark message to Putin.

They warned that any damage caused by such shipments, whether to aircraft or ground facilities, would be treated as an act of “enabling terrorism,” significantly escalating the already tense “shadow war” between the U.S. and Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine.

The report suggests that these warnings were effective in de-escalating the immediate threat, as the incidents cooled down. However, it remains unclear whether the plot originated from Putin himself or from rogue Russian operatives attempting to attack NATO countries without crossing the line into overt warfare.

This episode underscores the high-stakes tensions between the U.S. and Russia and highlights the shadowy, unconventional tactics increasingly used in global power struggles.