Bomb alerts were triggered on two planes on the way to Rome on Thursday after a misogynist hate group reportedly emailed airport authorities in the Italian capital to claim they had planted explosives onboard the two aircraft. At least 20 flights were impacted by bomb alerts on Thursday, throwing operations at major airports in cities like Madrid, Prague, Sofia and Brussels into chaos just two days after several flights had been forced to divert or make emergency landings amid a series of explosives hoaxes on Tuesday. The email, written in Italian and sent to officials managing both of Rome's major airports on Thursday, bore the subject line, "threat notification," according to local reports.
The text claimed bombs had been placed on a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome and an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin, also bound for the Italian capital. The Finnair flight landed in Rome's Fiumicino with an Italian fighter jet escort while the Aer Lingus flight was diverted to a French military base. "We, fighters of the Male State, will leave a mark on history with our actions today," the email reportedly read, threatening to "turn the skies red" by detonating the explosives.
Investigations into the bomb threats are in their early stages and authorities are yet to formally point the finger at any party. But they come as European and NATO officials warn Russia is escalating its campaign of so-called hybrid warfare against the continent, referring to tactics like sabotage, misinformation, arson and cyber assaults. Europe has been embroiled in a series of hacking incidents involving supermarket refrigerators this week, while French officials downplayed the impact of at least three French blood banks also being hacked.
A major French bank then said on Thursday more than $112 million had been stolen by cyber thieves and work was underway to recover the funds. An unnamed official from another European airport told the they had received a message from a self-described anti-feminist group, but it's not clear whether they were sent by the same actors, nor which transport hub was impacted. Calling in bomb threats doesn't require high levels of sophistication but can be an effective and inexpensive way to wreak havoc and sow fear among civilian populations.
One of the main goals of hybrid warfare is to foment paranoia and division. It's not yet confirmed whether the group claiming to have planted explosives on at least two of the affected flights that departed on Thursday is part of, or an offshoot of, a loose movement with the same name that started in Russia in 2016. A Russian court banned Male State as an "extremist" social media movement in the fall of 2021, roughly five years after it was set up by Russian far-right activist Vladislav Pozdnyakov.
Pozdnyakov was sentenced to two years' probation in Russia in 2018 after being convicted of inciting hatred toward women, Russian media reported. His sentence was overturned around three months later when Russia changed its extremism laws. Russian prosecutors had argued the organization—which started life as a group on Vkontakte, Russia's answer to Facebook— had relentlessly pursued women and gay people online on its journey to become one of the most infamous misogynist movements in Russia.
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