Four European intelligence services have warned their governments against this new danger which would be imminent, according to a detailed article in the Financial Times published this Sunday, May 5.
“Russia now appears ready to carry out operations on European soil with a high potential for damage.” Thomas Haldenwang, the head of the German intelligence services, has just warned his European counterparts of an imminent wave of sabotage actions prepared by Russian agents, according to the Financial Times, which this Sunday, May 5, devotes a long and worrying article to this new threat coming from Moscow.
“Causing civilian deaths”
According to the British newspaper, at least four intelligence services have warned their governments against this new danger coming from the Kremlin: “Russia has already begun to more actively prepare for secret bombings, arson and infrastructure damage on European soil, directly and using proxies, apparently without concern for causing civilian deaths” writes the Financial Times.
Even more worrying: a whole series of signals seems to indicate that these actions may have already begun, continues the Financial Times. In Germany, two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Bayreuth in mid-April, while they were preparing attacks against military sites, in particular against American bases, according to a press release from the German anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office. “This is a particularly serious case of alleged activity of agents for Putin’s criminal regime.” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser then said on X (formerly Twitter).
A munitions factory in Wales
In the United Kingdom, several people, who admitted acting for the Russian government, were charged with setting fire to a warehouse containing equipment destined for Ukraine. In Wales, a munitions factory exploded unexplained last month. In Sweden, authorities are investigating a series of train derailments suspected of being acts of Kremlin-backed sabotage. In addition, sabotage attempts were reported on Czech railways, aimed at disabling the signaling system, and in Estonia, the car of the Minister of the Interior, as well as those of several journalists, were damaged .
“There’s a lot going on.”
“Whether this reflects the fact that the Russians are devoting more resources to it, being more careless and getting caught; or whether Western counterintelligence has simply become better at detecting and stopping it cannot be said. stop it” explains to the Financial Times Keir Giles, an expert from a specialized think tank. “Anyway, there’s a lot going on.”
On Friday, Germany also announced that it had summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy in Berlin after denouncing a series of cyberattacks dating back to 2022 that it attributes to Russian military intelligence services. The Russian embassy in Berlin rejected these accusations, denouncing “a new unfriendly initiative aimed at arousing anti-Russian sentiment in Germany.”
Threats of cyberattacks
“Russian cyberattacks constitute a threat to our democracy, which we resolutely combat”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement, adding that Germany was acting alongside the EU and NATO. France, via the Quai d’Orsay, brought “his full support” to Germany and the Czech Republic and said to put “every effort is made to strengthen its capacity to adapt to cyber threats and enable the continuity of its activities, particularly in the run-up to the European elections and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, in conjunction with its partners.” “It will use all available levers to counter this threat, while respecting international law,” said the deputy spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
