MONTREAL, Aug 4, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The United Nations on Monday announced plans to enhance air mail security, one year after parcels exploded at DHL depots in Germany and Britain, in a plot blamed on Russia.

The strategy announced by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Universal Postal Union -- two specialized UN agencies -- aims to improve threat detection, officials told AFP.

European intelligence services believe Russia was behind the explosions last July at DHL depots in Leipzig, Germany and Birmingham in Britain.

Several people implicated in the operation were believed to be "disposable" agents with no official position in the Russian intelligence services, according to German media reports.

Such low-level agents were typically recruited via messaging apps to carry out tasks for money, the reports said.

German intelligence officials have said the planes carrying the parcels would have crashed had they exploded mid-flight.

Canada-based ICAO's head of aviation security, Sonia Hifdi, did not directly name Russia when laying out the plan, but said: "In the last 12 months, we have seen more sophisticated actors aiming to cause disruptions in the supply chain."

The joint "multi-year action plan" strives to train all personnel who handle air mail, and will work towards increased data sharing between postal and aviation authorities.

"This is not a problem localized to a single region, or for a single state, or a single actor," Hifdi told AFP.