Russia’s ‘brazen’ and intensifying sabotage campaign across Europe

Russia is conducting a sabotage campaign across Europe in an increasingly aggressive effort by President Vladimir Putin to undermine Western support for Ukraine, seeking to damage railways, military bases and other sites used to supply arms to Kyiv, U.S. and European officials say.

The attempted sabotage includes an alleged Russian-backed arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in the United Kingdom, a plot to bomb or set fire to military bases in Germany, attempts to hack and disrupt Europe’s railway signal network and the jamming of GPS systems for civil aviation, according to European and British authorities.

The physical sabotage campaign is part of a broader strategy that includes a flood of Russian propaganda and disinformation, increased espionage by Moscow and efforts to exert political influence in Europe to sow doubts about Ukraine’s military prospects and divisions within the NATO alliance, according to Western officials and regional analysts.

“It’s very disturbing, and it’s not like Russia has finished this process. It’s still ongoing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk of the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank. “Russia is definitely at war with the West.”

German officials announced this month that they had uncovered an elaborate hacking campaign by Russian military intelligence operatives that penetrated the email accounts of the country’s Social Democratic party headquarters, the leading party in the country’s governing coalition. The hacking effort also targeted German companies in the defense and aerospace industries.

Beyond Germany, Russia has staged thousands of cyberattacks on Czech and European railways, including hacking into signals and ticketing services, according to a Czech official. The Financial Times first reported the attacks and the wider sabotage threat.

So far, there is no indication Russia has managed to seriously disrupt the supply of weapons, ammunition or other aid to Ukraine through sabotage, a Biden administration official said. But they warned that physical attacks in Europe represented a more aggressive approach and that Russia was “crossing new lines.”

Russia has denied it is spreading disinformation, conducting a sabotage campaign or trying to influence European officials.

Danylyuk, who has advised Ukraine’s government, was one of the authors of a report in February that warned of a mounting threat from Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. The report said the GRU was building a clandestine network of operatives to conduct espionage and potential sabotage operations in Europe.

“The GRU is restructuring how it manages the recruitment and training of special forces troops,” the Royal United Services Institute said in the report, “and is rebuilding the support apparatus to be able to infiltrate them into European countries.”

The spate of reported sabotage reflects Russia’s brand of “hybrid warfare,” blending psychological, economic and political operations along with clandestine or conventional military force to weaken an adversary, experts and officials say.

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