The Male State, a Russian extremist group named in hoax bomb threats to Italian airports, denied involvement in messages to the BBC Russian Service on November 6, 2026. The threats disrupted flights across Europe, including an Aer Lingus flight to Rome diverted to a military base in France, and prompted evacuations at Irish media organizations.
The hoax threats diverted at least two flights and prompted evacuations at Irish media organizations, forcing airports and airlines to respond to false warnings. Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto linked the false alarms to a "hybrid threat" to Europe.
The Male State, a Russian extremist misogynistic group named in hoax bomb threats to Italian airports, denied any link to the false warnings that disrupted flights across Europe, in a message to the BBC Russian Service on November 6, 2026. An account on Telegram linked to the group and its founder Vladislav Pozdnyakov mocked the suggestion, saying: "What Male State? Where have you seen it? It hasn't existed for many years." The message also claimed that "fighters" of the Male State had planted explosives on two incoming flights.
The initial hoax email, seen by the BBC, was sent on Thursday at 07:21 with the subject title "warning of a threat." It was addressed to several offices and individuals at Aeroporti di Roma (ADR), the airport managing company in Rome, as well as accounts at the city's Fiumicino airport. The originating email address appeared linked to the state health services in Bogota, Colombia. Written in fluent Italian, the text claimed that "fighters" of the Male State had planted explosives on two incoming flights in an attack on Italy's "feminist regime" that would be "remembered forever."
One flight was diverted to a military base in France, and another was escorted into Rome by Italian air force jets. No explosives were found on either plane or any other that reported receiving bomb threats. A source at ADR told the BBC that such warnings were extremely unusual and they did not remember anything similar in recent years.
Bomb threats were also reported to a number of high-profile Irish media organizations on Friday, prompting evacuations and a statement from the Irish government suggesting a "co-ordinated campaign of disruption." Reports of further bomb scares appeared, including on a Ryanair flight from Rome to Lisbon and a Wizz Air flight from Prague to Rome that was diverted to Venice. At least one warning on Friday appeared to have come by phone, not email.
Italy's La Stampa newspaper appeared in no doubt that Male State was behind the threats, asking whether it is acting as "the regime's armed wing." The online investigation team at Bellingcat, which studied the group in 2022, called it then a "vocal and vile online booster" of the Russian invasion, with a clear extremist far-right ideology.
Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto warned of a "strategy to increase chaos" and noted he had been talking of the "hybrid threat" to Europe for some years. "It seems to me that, day after day, from incidents involving refrigerators to the blood supply in France and now these false alarms, there are those who have an interest in fuelling tensions," he said on Thursday, referring to recent cyber attacks that boosted supermarket fridge temperatures.
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