When the Lights Go Out: Is the Kremlin Striking London?
Heathrow goes dark, Britain stumbles. Was it an accident, or Russia’s shadow war in action? In modern conflict, the battlefield isn’t where you expect it.
The shutdown of Heathrow Airport on Friday due to a power outage, caused by a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation, has thrown the UK’s air travel network into disarray1. With over 1,300 flights affected, rerouted, or cancelled, and thousands of travellers stranded across multiple continents, the repercussions of this disruption are being felt well beyond British borders. The timing of the incident, its strategic implications, and the wider geopolitical climate raise unsettling questions about whether this was merely an accident, or something more calculated. Given Russia’s track record of covert operations and its hostility toward the UK and its allies, the possibility of sabotage cannot be dismissed.
A Nation Brought to a Standstill
On any given day, Heathrow, the world’s second-busiest international airport, acts as a vital artery of global connectivity. It is a place of beginnings and endings, of long goodbyes and hurried reunions, of business sealed in boardrooms a continent…