‘European intelligence services warn of violent Russian sabotage actions’

European intelligence services have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage in Europe. This is reported by the British business newspaper Financial Times Sunday, based on analyzes from three European countries. This would involve more aggressive sabotages than, for example, the cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns that Russia has sporadically carried out in Europe in recent years. For example, the side speaks of bomb and fire attacks and the sabotage of infrastructure, directly and through proxies.

European countries have already identified several (alleged) attempts in recent months. For example, two German-Russian men were arrested in Germany last month for allegedly planning to commit attacks on military and logistics locations. At the end of April, two men were charged in the United Kingdom with setting fire to a warehouse containing aid shipments for Ukraine.

An intelligence source told the Financial Times that Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to push the boundaries in Europe on all kinds of fronts, and cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns may also still be an issue. Earlier this week, NATO expressed its concerns in a statement about increasing “malicious activities on allied territory” by Russia. She spoke of an “intensifying campaign across the Euro-Atlantic area.”

Last Saturday the KRO-NCRV research programme Pointer it has emerged that there are strong indications of Russian espionage activities in the Eemshaven. This would be done via Russian refrigerated ships from the fishing company Norebo, which dock every two weeks in the port of Groningen.

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