“Disposable agents” working for a colonel in Russia’s GRU spy unit committed arson attacks on airports in Britain and elsewhere in Europe in July last year, a German media investigation has claimed.

European intelligence sources believe the GRU recruited single-use agents to carry out the sabotage, targeting DHL logistics centres in Birmingham and at Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany, as well as a transport hub in Warsaw.

An agent identified as Aleksandr S allegedly shipped the parcels containing incendiary devices from a DHL branch in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

They later caught fire while in transit, in a serious escalation of Russia’s hybrid war campaign in Europe.

Disposable agents are criminals, radicals or other outsiders recruited by Russia to carry out one-off attacks in Europe, with the promise of fast cash or other perks, including luxury vehicles.

The joint media investigation, by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the broadcasters NDR and WDR, named one of the suspected masterminds of the July attacks as Denis Smolyaninov, a GRU colonel believed to have expertise in manipulating aircraft and intercepting their communications.