European intelligence agencies issued a major warning and accused Russia of “plotting violent” acts of sabotage across the continent as the Russia-Ukraine war continues to escalate.
The intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies. The Intelligence officials warned that the Russian forces have little to no regard for civilian lives while conducting such operations. Advertisement
According to The Financial Times (link behind paywall), the problematic assessment was conducted by the intelligence officials of three European nations. “We assess the risk of state-controlled acts of sabotage to be significantly increased,” said Thomas Haldenwang, head of German domestic intelligence.
“Russia now seems comfortable carrying out operations on European soil [with] a high potential for damage,” he said at a European security conference last month.
Examples of Russian sabotage
The proclamation from Haldenwang came just days after two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Bayreuth, Bavaria. They were arrested by the German police for allegedly plotting to attack military and logistics sites in Germany on behalf of the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, two men were charged with having started a fire at a warehouse containing aid shipments for Ukraine, last month. Following the arrest the prosecutors accused them of working for the Russian government.
In Sweden, security services are investigating a series of railway derailment incidents and in Estonia, the country’s Internal Security Service said that the attack on the interior minister’s car in February, this year, was allegedly perpetrated by Russian intelligence operatives
Not only this, Russia was also accused of attempting to destroy the signalling systems on Czech railways by the European nation’s transportation minister, The Financial Times reported.
“The obvious conclusion is that there has been a real stepping up of Russian activity,” said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, the think-tank.
“One cannot tell if that’s a reflection of the fact that the Russians are throwing more resources at it; whether they are being more sloppy and getting caught; or whether western counter-intelligence has simply become better at detecting and stopping it,” he added.
NATO gets involved
One senior European government official said that the information about Russia’s malicious activities was being shared through Nato security services.
“The time had come to raise awareness and focus” about the threat of Russian violence on European soil,” he added. In light of this, NATO issued a statement on Thursday expressing its deep concern about growing “malign activities on allied territory” by Russia, and also citing what it said was an “intensifying campaign . . . across the Euro-Atlantic area”.
On Friday, Germany vowed consequences for Moscow — in a statement which was backed by EU and NATO over 2023 hacking attacks on the social democratic party of the county’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.