Bomb Threats Trigger Widespread Airport Disruptions Across Europe, 25 Flights Diverted

European airports faced significant disruptions on Thursday as at least 25 flights were diverted or compelled to make emergency landings due to bomb threats. Italy was particularly affected, with eight incidents linked to the country.

The widespread alert began Thursday morning when airports across Europe were placed on high alert following a new wave of bomb threats targeting various airport operators. In total, 25 flights were impacted, including seven that were either arriving in or departing from Italy. This recent series of threats follows a similar wave of at least seven false alarms on November 3, which were all later determined to be unfounded.

According to information obtained by the Italian news agency Adnkronos, an email sent to Terminal 3 at Fiumicino Airport, titled “Threat Notification” and written in Italian, was signed by a group identifying itself as “Male State Fighters.” Sofia Airport in Bulgaria also received a similar message with the identical signature. The threat email stated: “We, the fighters of the ‘Male State’, will enter history with our actions today. Your feminist system will remember this forever. The explosion will occur in 60 minutes. Today, your skies will turn red.”

Euronews reports that the signatures are believed to point to the Russian movement “Male State” (Muzhskoye Gosudarstvo), an ultranationalist and misogynistic group founded by Vladislav Pozdnyakov, a Russian blogger and radical nationalist activist. This movement has been banned in Russia.

Investigators are suspecting that these hoax bomb threats may have been coordinated on a European level. As a result, international cooperation channels have been activated to trace the servers and IP addresses used to send the bomb threat emails. Meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Busto Arsizio has initiated a case against unknown perpetrators, charging them with “raising a false alarm.”