2024-07-14 02:26:47
Several security officials across Europe describe a threat that is metastasizing as Russian agents, increasingly under surveillance by security services and disillusioned with their own operations, hire local “volunteers” to carry out risky and often contested crimes on their behalf.
A NATO official said they had seen an “unprecedented escalation and spread of Russian hybrid warfare” over the past six months, including “physical sabotage” of a NATO arms supply line to Ukraine. “It’s everything from the point of manufacture and origin, to storage, to the decision-makers and the actual delivery,” said a senior NATO official. “That’s presumptuous.” Russia is trying to intimidate (our) allies.”
Russia has dismissed the claims as baseless, but Russian sabotage and hybrid warfare will be on the agenda for NATO’s 75th anniversary meeting in Washington on Tuesday. Still, it’s unclear how publicly member states will express their dismay at what analysts have called the Kremlin’s new “shadow war,” as they may be reluctant to hand Moscow a propaganda victory or stoke fears over a string of security breaches across Europe.
Recent high-profile arrests in Russia have revealed that the Kremlin’s intelligence operations have been chaotic and clumsy since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Last year, 14 Ukrainians and two Belarusians were arrested in one case in Poland, suspected of working for Russian intelligence.
The Ukrainian, who under Polish privacy laws can only be named as 24-year-old Maksim L., was jailed for six years after receiving assignments for weeks from Russian boss Andrzej, whom he had never met in person but met in 2023. February. through the messaging app Telegram.
Andrzej initially paid him $7 in digital currency to spray anti-war graffiti in Poland, Maksim said. But soon the tasks became darker.
“Easy Money and Innocent Tasks”
In a rare interview with CNN in the maximum security section of the Lublin prison, Maksim said he fled Ukraine to Poland to escape unemployment and poverty. “It was easy money,” he said of Andrzej’s job offer. “I really needed the money.”
He said he felt no obligation to fight for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022. in February “That country never did anything for me,” he said. – I don’t think that just because you were born in a certain country, you have to fight for it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not pro-Russian, I’m not pro-Ukrainian. I’m not for nothing.”
Andrzej soon began sending Maksim specific locations where he should install surveillance cameras along the railroad tracks near the border town of Medyka, through which military and humanitarian aid was supposed to flow into Ukraine. “I didn’t think any of it could do any real harm. It seemed so insignificant,” he said.
Later, Andrzej asked him to burn the fence of a Ukrainian-owned transport company in the eastern Polish town of Biała Podlaska, he said, and Maksim said he faked it by taking pictures of the fence with pieces of coal he placed to simulate fire damage.
But Maksim gradually realized that Andrzej was a Russian agent, which he said became abundantly clear when he was told to set up cameras near a base where Poland was training Ukrainian soldiers. “That’s when I realized it could be serious,” he said. “It made me feel uneasy.” Then I decided I was going to quit. But I never got the chance. I was arrested the next day.”
Polish internal security agents arrested Maksim in 2023. March 3 after weeks of surveillance, prompted in part by the discovery of a gas station receipt that a Polish official said Maksim accidentally dropped during one of his operations. Several other arrests followed, making it the largest known recent Russian espionage operation in Poland, raising concerns in Warsaw about the extent of Moscow’s infiltration. Last August, two Russian citizens were arrested on suspicion of recruiting for Wagner, and in May of this year, a Pole and two Belarusians were arrested for suspected arson.
Another Pole in 2024 was detained in April for possession of ammunition and surveillance of the Rzeszów Jasionka airport, a hub for NATO arms shipments to Kiev, suspected of plotting to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also frequently uses the facility.
The acts of sabotage in Poland add to a string of incidents across Europe that, taken together, show the broad scope of Moscow’s operations. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia was “probably” involved in the May attack. of the arson attack in the largest shopping center in Poland, and in June another fire at a munitions factory south of the capital was suspected. Czech officials have expressed concern over Russia’s involvement in hacking and disrupting its railways last year.
Last month, a suspicious fire broke out at a defense manufacturer’s metals factory near Berlin, and a 26-year-old pro-Russian Ukrainian was arrested after blowing himself up with a homemade bomb near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. London’s Metropolitan Police have charged two men with arson and aiding a foreign intelligence service, namely Russia, following a warehouse fire in east London in March.
While not all of the incidents were definitively linked to Russian intelligence, they all had in common the apparent involvement of recruited “hobbyists” (non-professionals – ed. post) or petty crime aimed at spreading fear or disruption.
“Dangerous Game”
A senior NATO official said Russia’s sabotage of NATO states amounted to “a pretty dangerous game if (Russia) thinks these things are always below the threshold of armed conflict” and was confident it would not trigger NATO’s Article 5 provisions that an attack on one member state is an attack on the entire alliance.
“Determining where that line is is a difficult and dangerous calculation,” the official said, adding that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shows the Kremlin leader doesn’t always get good military advice.
The official added that Russia uses “the full range of hybrid operations”:
“We see everything from the highest-level operations in Europe, where we saw as much as 400,000 paid for certain intelligence activities. euros, to some places where thugs are hired for a couple of thousand euros.”
A similar threat has increased on Russia’s border with NATO, in Estonia, where in February 10 suspected Russian agents were arrested after the interior minister’s car was damaged. The incident was the high point of what Estonian officials called a years-long campaign by Moscow to destabilize the tiny NATO neighbor, which has about a fifth of its 1.3 million people. of the population are Russian-speaking, as stated in 2021. In the analysis carried out by the EU.
In recent months, GPS jams have prevented civilian planes from landing and buoys marking part of Russia’s border with Estonia on the Narva River have even disappeared, prompting Moscow to briefly call for a reassessment of maritime borders.
Harry Puusepp, spokesman for Estonia’s internal security service KAPO, told CNN that Russia’s actions have intensified in recent months. “Last autumn, we noticed a significant increase in their activity, and by winter we managed to arrest more than 10 (suspects). Until now, their number has increased – individuals who participated in their hybrid activities against the security of Estonia,” said the representative.
He said operations were moving “toward physical attacks” and hinted that the war in Ukraine could lead to more aggressive Russian tactics in the coming months if operatives move from the war to the Baltic states.
“We have to accept the facts. Russia is big enough to have the resources to go to war against Ukraine and also support its aggressive operations against European countries…against us. There are people who participate in the war against Ukraine, and then they are rotated to some other region or area. They have more experience. Their mindset is more violent. They may not be so patient anymore when trying to achieve results,” warned H. Puusepp.
Prepared by CNN.
2024-07-14 02:26:47