New Facts: Lithuania identifies 16 Nord Stream suspects

Lithuanian prosecutors identified 16 suspects in the parcel blasts and courts have approved detention for nine of them. Vilnius has requested the extradition of one person detained in Estonia, but Tallinn has not confirmed it will hand the suspect over.

Investigators say four parcels mailed from Vilnius on July 19, 2024 were part of the operation. One parcel caught fire at Leipzig airport on July 20 before it was due to be loaded on a DHL plane to Britain; a second exploded on a DPD truck crossing Poland on July 21 and a third detonated in a DHL warehouse in Birmingham on July 22; the fourth failed to ignite.

The detonations were organized and supervised by Russian citizens with ties to Russia’s military intelligence. Organizers recruited operatives via the Telegram messaging app and paid them in cryptocurrency, and investigators from Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, the United States and Canada are working the case.

AI-synthesized from multiple reported sources