Sex toys, body lotion and massage cushions were not the kind of delivery Aleksandr Suranovas usually handled.
“What?” he messaged, when he was sent a photograph of the items he was being asked to post in four parcels from Lithuania to the UK and Poland.
“It’s what they need, and they’re offering regular work,” the response came over the messaging app Telegram. The pay was decent: €150 (£130/$173) for a couple of hours’ work, so Suranovas agreed. “If that’s what’s needed, fine by me,” he typed back.
But each parcel contained a sophisticated incendiary device. The tubes of cosmetics had been re-filled with a liquid high explosive called nitromethane and the ignition devices were so well hidden inside the cushions even an airport scanner didn’t detect them. Suranovas maintains he had no idea of this.
When he was handed the items in a Vilnius park in July 2024 the timers inside were already counting down. Over the next two days, three of the parcels would go up in flames, one just before it was loaded onto a cargo plane for London. Any later and the consequences could have been disastrous.
That August, Suranovas was arrested and charged with carrying out an act of terrorism on behalf of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Twenty-two people are now in custody in Lithuania and Poland after an international investigation involving UK counter-terrorism officers. It concluded that the operation was run by Russia, an allegation consistently denied by Moscow. This is the first time anyone involved in the parcel plot has spoken publicly.
Last year, I wrote to several of the suspects in prison as part of my own ongoing investigation into a wave of sabotage attacks across Europe following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that has included arson and derailed trains as well as the parcel plot. Suranovas replied at length and, when he was released on remand recently, agreed to meet.
His account, together with the many case documents I have seen and other sources, give a unique insight into an extraordinary plot that targeted the UK and several other countries, in an apparent attempt to shatter support for Kyiv.They help expose how Russia is now actively recruiting individuals within Europe, accused of increasingly serious attacks.
“I wouldn’t call it a shadow war. I think this is active aggression against our nations,” Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre, warns. “It’s a clear message that those who support Ukraine will be hit by the Russians. I think it’s very dangerous and we are very close to… situations where a lot of people would be suffering.”
By Anthony Solly
