Russian Military Intelligence, GRU, Linked to Coordinated Attacks Across Europe

The intelligence arm of the Russian military, the GRU, is most likely behind a series of increasingly visible, frequent and coordinated events across Europe.

Writing about this Bloomberg citing officials familiar with the case. It is noted that in Germany, two suspects hired by Russian intelligence to attack military installations came to the country as teenagers. In Estonia, young people with criminal records were recruited through Telegram to commit acts of vandalism against a minister’s car and national monuments for little money.

Elsewhere in Europe, government officials are being advised to be cautious to avoid the increased risk of violence from Russian-backed criminals. From Berlin to Vilnius, governments face a growing threat of Russian-backed acts of sabotage and violent intimidation across NATO countries ahead of European Union elections. They, along with a proven decontamination campaign, are designed to test the strength of support for Ukraine on the continent.

The intensity of the Kremlin-controlled actions – years after the Salisbury poisoning, which Britain says may have been ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the Tiergarten killings in Berlin – led to one senior official concluded that Moscow does not care that it could be captured. committing hostile acts, and has moved from more subtle forms of covert espionage to outright brutality against Western targets,” the newspaper writes.

A British man will appear in court in London on Friday accused of setting fire to a warehouse linked to Ukraine in east London. In response, Britain expelled one of Russia’s top diplomats as part of a crackdown on Russian spies. In Poland, prosecutors have arrested a man they accuse of gathering information about an airport that is a key stopover for officials traveling to and from Ukraine on suspicion of supporting a plot Russian to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky.

One European official said several incidents in Europe were part of a coordinated GRU operation. In addition, similar activities were carried out in different capitals.

The Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, recently said that “Russia has been sending death squads to Europe for several years. “

“We had a terrorist hired by Russia who tried to carry out a terrorist attack in Poland a couple of months ago, and I’m sure they are trying to do this in other countries,” he said.

In their aggressiveness, methods and scale, the Russian-backed attacks represent a new threat from the Kremlin, and officials say the recent attacks share a common thread: they often take including local people recruited largely through Internet intermediaries to hit targets in the West or perform other harmful actions on Moscow’s orders, the publication writes.

According to one of the officials, it is very likely that this strategy, aimed at the whole of Europe, was approved at the highest level in Moscow. According to another source, Russia has a deliberate strategy to sabotage aid to Ukraine throughout Europe and recruit local residents to aid its efforts. In particular, the Lithuanian intelligence service warned this week that Russia is trying to recruit residents of the Baltic states to carry out provocations or attacks.

“For this purpose, social platforms are increasingly being used to post advertisements seeking people for recruitment, people willing to spy for a reward, taking pictures of the infrastructure of military facilities of strategic importance, collecting data on individuals and committing sabotage or damage,” the department said in a statement.

It is not only the Baltic countries that are sounding the alarm. Last month, two people were arrested in Germany for planning “acts of sabotage” against military and industrial targets, including US installations. For example, against the US military base in Grafenwoehr, where Ukrainian soldiers are trained on Abrams tanks.

“The risk is particularly high for countries with a communist era or that were once part of the Soviet Union, as they consume Russian media and are more susceptible to anti-Ukrainian and anti-European propaganda , the source said his report warned about the possible infiltration of Russian spies as “Ukrainian refugees” or even about the sabotage of military transport to Ukraine,” wrote Bloomberg.

Russia is trying to leverage its power while avoiding retaliation or immediate countermeasures, said Teija Tiilikainen, director of the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.

Threat to Europe from Russian Federation

Many members of Europe are more convinced of Russia’s aggression than other countries. Czech President Petr Pavel explained this because the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have direct experience of communicating with the Soviet Union and Russia. And this knowledge cannot be called positive.

Let’s note that the Financial Times recently announced, citing European intelligence services, that the Russian Federation is “planning acts of violence and sabotage across the continent.” ” The Central Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine says that this is not news, and our country is also monitoring this issue.

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