March 22, 2025 (EIRNS)—The British press is whipping up more hysteria against Russia following a March 21 fire at London’s Heathrow Airport that knocked out power and closed the airport for about 24 hours. According to The Telegraph, “the fire has all the hallmarks of Russian state-sponsored terrorism.” They say this after admitting that British authorities still don’t know the cause of the fire in an electrical substation at the airport.
“A fire the likes of which has never happened before. One which instantly closes Europe’s biggest air hub at a time of rising geo-political tensions, and just as a meeting of the continent’s most senior defense chiefs breaks up. Can it really be a coincidence?” By that logic, practically anything that goes wrong can be blamed on Russia. It’s like saying “We have no proof but we know Russia did it.”
The question that supposedly no one wants to deal with is, if the Heathrow fire was sabotage, can it be used to trigger NATO’s Article 5? “But say, in time, a link to the Russian state was established beyond doubt,” The Telegraph says in a separate commentary. “In 2016, NATO declared that a hybrid attack on a member state could trigger an Article 5 response, in which all members would be required to come to the defense of the victim. In 2021, it reaffirmed that attacks on critical infrastructure could be deemed an act of war. With proof of Russian involvement—and evidence of significant damage, such as the grounding of 300,000 plane passengers—the natural question would be is NATO going to trigger Article 5?”
