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.
Sounds like Russia is keen on active war with NATO.
Ok, I don’t know what similar shit ‘The West’ is pulling on Russia, but I don’t really have a lot of sympathy if it gets extremely escalated from our side. Fuck Putin. Fuck Xi. They both need a holiday via a flight through a woodchipper.
It’s no secret that Putin is trying to destabilize multiple western countries through his hybrid psyops warfare programs.
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.
Taurus time or are we still concerned about “escalations” beyond Russia planning terrorist acts against your country?
Right, god I wish their Chancellor would stop being such a pussy
Chancellor would stop being such a pussy
I undserstand your sentiment, and not that I expecially care for Scholz, but he deserves better: he can’t do it without the support the German Parliament. He might have been able to overcome that, if he’d had more public approval. In these turbulent disinformation/influence times, this is often the determinator…
Here a link EU polls Germany " Germany divided on military aid: The Bundestag has approved supplying heavy weapons to Ukraine - but Germans public opinion is quite divided on the issue as shown in different polls: in the Politbarometer survey, most of German respondents surveyed (56%) think it right to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, while 39% were against it. Otherwise, 59% believe that the delivery of such weapons increases the danger of a Russian attack on Western, see source."
29 April 2022 You know up to date polling…
Here a more up2date versionlink dec 2023. If you have better info, please feel free to post your own findings, that would be very constructive.
Sounds like they need a bit of their own medicine. Who did it? Who knows!
Wouldn’t it be a shame if one of those GPS-jammer-seeking glide bombs Ukraine recently received somehow accidentally hit Kaliningrad
I’m not for Russia in the war, but to be fair, it’s not an unreasonable response to the increasingly hostile and permissive West.
It’s still an act of war of a reprehensible terrorist state making itself an international pariah, but it’s still a clever stratagem in their position.
@KidnappedByKitties @Lemminary
Yeah, I wonder where this hostility of the West towards Russia came from? Might it has to do with the war maybe?
Not really, it has been a defining cultural identity since the cold war, defining all of Putins rule, and is well documented in both state position and citizen sentiment for decades.
Russia has a national narrative that it is unfairly and unrightfully sabotaged by the West in all things, and has to fight not to succumb to the hateful/imperial west.
Edit: oh I misunderstood, Russian hostility against the west is a defining feature of Russia. West’s issue with Russia also predates the war, but has certainly increased in intensity as they’ve turned more offensive in Georgia, Crimea, and the like.
