Discover more from Fr. Joe’s Newsletter - Moving to Russia
How Ukraine Hid Hexogen Nitroamine Explosives in Icons of the Virgin Mary (VIDEO)
Kits for assembling improvised explosive devices were also found in the icons - a battery, a radio board with a SIM card slot, and an electric detonator
The Smuggler’s Nerves Couldn’t Handle It
At the Ubylinka checkpoint, the border with Latvia in the Pskov region, Russian FSB security officers noticed a Mercedes Sprinter minibus with a trailer entering the country. The driver seemed unusually nervous while filling out documents for the cargo. He was trying to urge the customs officers on, and he kept repeating that he had a very urgent delivery — he needed to bring all the items to Moscow as soon as possible.
The border guards were in no hurry and carefully inspected the cargo. There were Orthodox icons and various church utensils including a censer and some candlesticks. How could it be “urgent” to deliver such items? — There turned out to be some high-powered plastic explosives hidden in the icons, as well as wires and microcircuits.
The driver was detained at the checkpoint. It turned out that the young man had two passports - Russian and Ukrainian.
The cargo was seized by Russian FSB security officers and delivered to the forensic center of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Pskov Region. There they checked and confirmed: the icons contained hexogen, an explosive which is one and a half times more powerful than TNT. The weight of the entire batch - 70 kilograms - is enough to blow up a five-story residential building. Along with them were “industrial sabotage fuses with a set of moderators,” said the head of the center, Dmitry Belotserkovsky. These are used by special forces for sabotage.
Kits for assembling improvised explosive devices were also found in the icons - a battery, a radio board with a SIM card slot, and an electric detonator. When all elements are combined with an explosive, the improvised explosive device is ready for use. “Assembling such an IED takes a matter of minutes,” Belotserkovsky said.
VIDEO — Russian FSB Security forces discover a batch of smuggled explosives hidden in religious icons shipped from Ukraine
Judging by the labeling of the cargo, the batch of icons and church utensils was produced in Kiev, transported to Chernivtsi (near the Romanian border), and from there it was transported through the international checkpoint Porubnoye to Romania itself, to the city of Felticeni.
It is worth noting that Romania has been a member of the European Union since 2007, and a part of NATO since 2004. Since the start of Russia’s special military operation, Romania tightened inspections on the border with Ukraine, because the Ukrainians who do not want to be drafted into the military are fleeing by the thousands, crossing the border in every possible way — some on foot, some by swimming, some disguised as women. But even after reinforcement and thorough inspection, the Romanian border guards did not see anything suspicious about the church utensils made in Kiev, being sent to Russia.
In Romania, a driver in a Mercedes picked up “cargo for the church.”
"Everything is Fine"
But Romania does not have a customs agreement with other EU countries, and when entering Hungary the driver had to cross the border. There, too, the cargo underwent a “thorough” inspection, but again there were “no problems”. The driver said:
“I submitted all the documents to cross the Romanian-Hungarian border. They searched me, checked me, there were no problems. After that, I drove into the Schengen zone.”
Needless to say, don’t both Romanian and European regulations strictly prohibit the import of explosives and components for explosive devices?
A minibus with 70 kilograms of hexogen and components for the manufacture of explosive devices traveled for several days through broad expanses of Eastern Europe — Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia — traveling more than two thousand kilometers, and even after three customs controls were carried out, no one noticed anything suspicious — as if everything was just as it should be.
The third customs control “inspection” was at the Latvian-Russian border — they only looked at the documents, without asking a single question, and allowed the shipment of explosives into Russia.
Arsenal in a Mercedes
But that strategy didn’t work at Russian customs. In Russia, the security services actually work. They found 70 kilograms of industrially produced explosives hidden in the icons. Hexogen was packaged in bags on plates so that it could be hidden in a recess on the back of the icon. It was covered with thin oiled paper and closed with a back wall.
To assemble a bomb from this type of RDX (hexogen), you need fuses. They were also in the car — 91 of them. Experts have found out that this is not a handicraft production, but the work of an entire workshop. This is evidenced by circuit boards, soldering of parts, wires, and the insulation of fragile elements and connections with a special resin which is used in the production of electrical equipment.
There were also 27 ready-made explosive devices. They, too, were made of compressed hexogen, which was hidden in the frames of the icons. To activate it, it was enough just to insert a fuse into the frame.
And that’s just the icons. There were also other items. For example, they found candlesticks containing parts for an RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launcher.
The investigators are working on finding out who the cargo was intended for. According to the documents, the “destination” column listed a warehouse in Moscow. But the driver claimed that he knew nothing about what he was carrying. During interrogation, he said:
“At a warehouse in Romania, I looked at the cargo — it was church utensils and icons. I was given the entire package of documents. I drove to Russia, planning to go to Moscow, where the unloading was supposed to take place.”
But the driver came across as disingenuous. It seems likely that he knew what was in the back of his vehicle, which is why he was so nervous when entering Russia.
Source: kp.ru (Russian)
This was greenlit by the US forces. They are trying to get a deal before Russia takes it all. No doubt this will bear examination and the forces in Moscow will be found and they will be taken out. They should not play these games. The deliberate targeting of civilians will not be tolerated. I foresee that in Kiev they will have countermeasures soon. The money that was exchanged for services exposes the fact that people can be bought off for a price.
The Lord’s wrath will burn against the vipers who plotted this nefarious crime. May He continue bless the brave agents who uncovered it. And let this serve as yet another reminder that Holy Russia stands alone against the demonic forces of hell. She shall triumph as the Lord’s anointed and blessed nation.