Series of fire accidents and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK, and the European intelligence agencies think that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the West.
The intelligence officials believe that Russia has already begun to actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities.
Instances of suspicion over alleged Russian involvment
For example, fire broke out in Ikea in Vilnius in Lithuania recently and the polish prime minister,Donald Tusk, suggested it could have been work of a foreign entity.
In fact last week, Tusk revealed Polish authorties had arrested nine people in connection with acts of sabotage allegedly committed on the orders of Russian services.
Then two men charged in UK in late April with having started a fire at a warehouse containing aid shipments for Ukraine. English prosecutors accuse them of working for the Russian govt.
In sweden, country’s transport minister last month told Financial Times that, Russia attempted to destroy the signalling systems on Czech railways.
However, these instances altogether there is no evidence that any of these incidents across the continent are coordinated.
On Tuesday (May 28), the Estonian defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said the country had already been the victim of Russian sabotage.
“They have conducted similar operations in Estonia. They hired 10 people to attack the car of the interior minister and a journalist’s car. This is normal behaviour of Russia,” he said in Brussels while addressing an EU defence summit.
German authorities arrested two individuals with dual German-Russian citizenship in April. They were suspected of planning sabotage attacks, including an explosion and arson at a military base in Bavaria. Prosecutors allege the main suspect communicated directly with Russian intelligence.
Is there any truth to the allegations?
Reported by FT, analysts at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute highlighted the prescense of Russian proxies in Europe. Those include members of the Russian diaspora as well as organised crime groups with which the Kremlin has long-standing ties.
A key strategic shift has also occurred, with so-called “Committees of Special Influence” coordinating intelligence operations country-by-country for the Kremlin, drawing together what were previously piecemeal efforts by the country’s fractious security services and other Kremlin players.
With Russia’s stepping up operations, security services have been on high alert over threats and are looking to identify targets they may have missed.
