British counter-terrorism police are investigating possible sabotage following a huge blaze near London’s Heathrow Airport, according to multiple reports.
The Thursday evening fire at an electrical substation in Hayes, near the airport west of the English capital, wiped out power at the busy travel hub and also knocked out its back-up energy system, causing travel chaos.
Thousands of buildings nearby were also left without power, and 150 people had to be evacuated from surrounding homes. Flames also caught hold of a transformer containing over 6,600 gallons of cooling fluid.
The fire is still burning and the airport, the fifth busiest in the world, is expected to be closed until at least midnight Friday. Firefighters said the cause of the blaze was not immediately known, but specialist cops in the U.K. are not ruling out bad actors, like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Times reported that counter-terrorism detectives from London’s Metropolitan Police were hastily deployed to probe whether sabotage might have played a part. The paper’s chief reporter, Fiona Hamilton, name-checked Russia in a message on X.
“Counter terrorism police put on Heathrow fire investigation to establish whether or not it is foul play,” she wrote. “Any major incident like this is immediately escalated, particularly given threat of sabotage by Russia. Sources say precautionary and CT police often deployed like this.”
The BBC reported that the Met Police said there was “currently no indication of foul play” but officers were keeping an “open mind at this time.”
It is standard practice for several departments, including counter terrorism police, to investigate large scale incidents. Even still, British tabloids were more forthright in their finger pointing at the Kremlin. The Mail Online, the Daily Mail’s online offering, asked in their headline: “Is Russia behind Heathrow Airport closure?”
The publication quoted security expert Will Geddes, director and founder of the International Corporate Protection Group, who said: “The Russians are looking at everything. They’re looking at our fibre optics under the sea, they’re looking at our nuclear power stations, we know hostile reconnaissance is going on right now.
“So for this to be taken down so easily and cause such an impact, one has got to say if I was Russia, that’s where I would focus my attentions as well.”
Bob Seely, a Russia expert and former Conservative politician in the U.K., said it was “likely” an accident, but added that Russia could not be ruled out. “We should be building resilience into our critical national infrastructure, especially given the rise in Russian sabotage operations in Europe,” he told the Mail.
It comes after Richard Moore, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, in November accused Russia of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe.
During a speech in Paris, Moore said Putin and his acolytes were attempting “to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine.”
And indeed, the incident attack comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged ongoing support to Ukraine.
Last week, he hosted an online meeting between Western leaders dubbed the “coalition of the willing,” those who are intent on seeing a Russia-Ukraine peace deal prevail. This preceded a meeting between European Union and U.K. delegates to discuss “ways to dial up pressure on Russia.”
At the beginning of March, British and Ukrainian officials also signed the U.K.-Ukraine Bilateral agreement, paving the way for an almost $3 billion loan to bolster Ukrainian defense capabilities.
More recently, The Telegraph reported that the U.K. could send fighter jets to Ukraine to help protect its troops against ongoing aggression from Russia. The Prime Minister has already promised to put British troops on the ground if President Donald Trump is able to successfully negotiate a peace deal.
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, said after an EU Summit on Friday that politicians on the continent have an “obsession” with militarizing Europe. “Their eyes, at least in public, reveal a fixation on militarizing Europe regardless of the consequences,” he said cryptically, according to TASS.
“The militarization of Europe is a very, very dangerous trend. It certainly does not bring us any closer to an easing of tensions or to the restoration of mutual trust; rather, it undermines security in Europe,” Peskov added.
