Russia has been waging a campaign of sabotage across Europe for years, with 145 instances of ‘disruption’ recorded.
An investigation has documented details of Vladimir Putin’s ‘hybrid war’, which has been increasing in frequency and severity.
From explosives placed on railway tracks to exploding DHL parcels and warehouse fires, chaos has been unleashed by the Kremlin, which still denies any involvement.
A senior European intelligence official told AP: ‘It’s a 24/7 operation between all the services to stop it.’
The investigation comes after the new head of MI6 warned that the front line with Russia is ‘everywhere’.
Data shows that instances of sabotage linked to Russia have only increased since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Arson attacks in London and Estonia
In January, a supermarket and Ukrainian restaurant in Estonia were targeted in arson attacks by a Moldovan man.
Authorities say the man in question had never visited the country prior to the crimes – something which raised alarm bells.
In London, a gang that set fire to a London warehouse, which was providing aid to Ukraine, was found to be linked to Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group.
The men put the lives of 60 firefighters at risk and caused an estimated £1 million worth of damage with the arson on industrial units in Leyton last March.
The warehouse was targeted by the terrorist group – previously headed by the late rebel commander Yevgeny Prigozhin – because it was being used to supply humanitarian aid and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.
A shopping centre in Warsaw was also the subject of an arson attack in May 2024, which Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said was ‘quite likely’ the work of Russian saboteurs.
Exploding parcels on cargo planes
Last autumn, UK counter-terrorism police were investigating whether Russian spies planted an explosive device on a plane which sparked a warehouse fire in Birmingham.
Nobody was injured during the outbreak at the Minworth factory, and the fire was reportedly dealt with by staff members and local firefighters.
But the incident raised suspicion after it was revealed a near-identical fire occurred at a DHL warehouse in Leipzig, Germany, with another suspect package bound for a flight thought to be the source of the blaze.
Metro previously revealed how Russia’s plotting on planes could lead to them orchestrating a mass-casualty terrorist attack in Europe.
Chatham House Russia expert Keir Giles said innocent civilians are ‘likely’ to be victims in the nation’s ‘hidden war’ against European countries after they routinely backed Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Mr Giles told Metro: ‘Previously, Russia has sponsored terrorist movements which carried out armed attacks against European countries throughout the Cold War.
‘Now with these airline parcel plots, the willingness from Russia to cause mass casualties has returned.
‘Europe is bearing the brunt of these attacks. We should soon expect a surge in Russian state terrorist attacks across Europe.’
Targeting flights with electronic attacks
Russia is suspected to have been targeting aircraft systems for years, but only caught attention for affecting RyanAir, Wizz-Air, British Airlines, Easyjet, TUI and Jet2 in early 2024.
Between August 2023 and March 2024 alone, 46,000 flights in areas such as the Baltic, Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean logged interference issues.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority has insisted that flying is still safe as there are ‘several protocols’ in place to protect their systems onboard.
Yet the warnings about suspected Russian interference in everyday flights went seemingly unheeded for years.
Chatham House Russian expert Keir Giles, who is familiar with planes, told Metro that disrupting electronic systems is one way Russia can practise for war with Nato.
Mounting cyber attacks
Cyber attack threats have also been on the rise from foreign countries.
In early 2023, government minister Oliver Dowden revealed the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued an ‘official threat notice’ to those who operate critical national infrastructure.
The NCSC said there was an ’emerging risk posed by state-aligned adversaries’ as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, and organisations needed to ‘act now’ to protect themselves against attacks.
Mr Dowden said these Russian-aligned groups now have a motive to ‘disrupt or destroy’ UK infrastructure.
‘Russia is at war with us – we just don’t know it’
Earlier this week, Samantha de Bendern, Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, told Metro these acts of sabotage should be considered acts of terrorism.
de Bendern argued: ‘But Russia is at war with us. We just don’t know it. I think people will only wake up to this threat when a missile falls on a European capital or European city.
‘Russia is counting on us being the frog in boiling water. It’s counting on the fact that it will make us get used to having airports closed because drones are flying over them.
‘We’ve had Russia use chemical warfare on British soil with Skripal Novichok. We’ve had Russia use byproducts of the military nuclear complex by using plutonium on British soil that hardly registered a blink. I think, unfortunately, it’s going to take something catastrophic on NATO soil for us to realise,’ de Bendern adds.
‘People keep saying, ‘We don’t want to send our boys to die for Ukraine, we don’t want to go to war with Russia.”
‘I agree with that. I have a son who would be old enough to go and fight. I don’t want him to go and fight for Ukraine either,’ she says.
‘But we need to understand that if Ukraine falls, we will be next. In one way or another, we will be next.’
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