European Intelligence Services Warn Russia Is Planning Mass Sabotage Across Europe
European intelligence services have warned their governments that Russia is planning violent acts of sabotage across the continent, the Financial Times reports.
According to their estimates, Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert explosions, petrol bomb attacks and infrastructure destruction on European territory, directly and through proxies, without much apparent concern for possible civilian casualties. Russian saboteurs and terrorists have a long history of such operations - and have conducted joint attacks in Europe in recent years. But now there is growing evidence of more aggressive and effective actions. Intelligence officials have been increasingly vocal about the threat in an effort to raise vigilance.
"We assess that the risk of state-controlled acts of sabotage has increased significantly," said Thomas Galdenwang, Germany's head of domestic intelligence.
He spoke just days after two German-Russian citizens were arrested in Bayreuth, Bavaria, for allegedly plotting to attack military and logistics facilities in Germany on behalf of Russia.
In the United Kingdom, two men were charged in late April with causing a fire at a warehouse with aid kits for Ukraine. British prosecutors accuse them of working for the Russian government.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, security services are investigating a series of recent railway derailments, which they believe may be acts of state sabotage.
In the Czech Republic, Russian terrorists tried to destroy the signalling systems of Czech railways, the country's transport minister told the FT last month.
In Estonia, the attack on the car of the Minister of the Interior in February and attacks on journalists in Estonia were carried out by Russian intelligence agents, according to the country's Internal Security Service.
This year, the French Ministry of Defence also warned of possible Russian sabotage attacks on military targets.
"The obvious conclusion is that there has been a real intensification of Russian activity," said Keir Giles, senior fellow at the Chatham House think tank.
Last week, NATO issued a statement expressing deep concern over Russia's "growing malicious activities on allied territory.
As a reminder, a few days ago, Germany and the Czech Republic accused Russia of massive cyberattacks on government agencies.
The European Union, of which Berlin and Prague are members, on Friday condemned the "malicious cyber campaign" against the two countries. The bloc warned that it would use the "full range" of tools to respond.
NATO also expressed solidarity with Germany and the Czech Republic over the cyberattacks carried out by a Russian hacker group and is ready to consider a coordinated response to the threat.