Male State denies sending Rome email that threatened two flights

Threats disrupted airports in Madrid, Prague, Sofia and Brussels on 5 November, and investigators have not yet established who sent them.

An email threatened that planes, cruise ships, metro stations and trains would soon be blown up. It arrived signed Mikhail Andropov, who presented himself as one of the leaders of the group behind recent European bomb threats. Ireland Live, an Irish news site, reported that no verified evidence supports the claims, and authorities have not established who sent it.

More than 20 flights in Europe faced bomb alerts on 5 November, disrupting Madrid, Prague, Sofia and Brussels airports, while a Wizz Air flight to Bucharest landed safely. Ireland's government, led by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, judged it probable the alerts form a coordinated campaign to cause disruption. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares called it an attempt at hybrid aggression and psychological warfare. A senior official at NATO, the Western military alliance, said it was monitoring the situation and working closely with allies.

An email written in word-perfect Italian reached Aeroporti di Roma and Fiumicino airport offices at 07:21 on 5 November. It claimed fighters of the Male State had planted explosives on a Finnair flight from Helsinki and an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin as an attack on Italy's 'feminist regime'. The sending address appeared linked to Bogota health services in Colombia. The group that sent it wrote: "We, fighters of the Male State, will leave a mark on history with our actions today". The Rome threats came in a week when some supermarkets and Irish media offices including RTÉ and Newstalk received bomb threats.

The group named in the Rome email denies it sent anything. Vladislav Pozdniakov, who founded the Male State as a misogynist, nationalist movement on the Russian social network VK in 2016, said on Telegram on 6 November that the movement does not exist since 2021, when Russian courts banned it as extremist. A Telegram channel linked to the group told the BBC Russian Service it had not emailed the threats. Pozdniakov is thought to live abroad. Investigators found no evidence that a hostile state actor such as Russia or Iran stood behind the threats, though inquiries continue, the Guardian reported.

Officials in the affected countries have voiced no direct suspicions. European authorities are still working to identify the sources. Irish officials say it is not yet established whether isolated individuals or a coordinated campaign sent them.