Secret services warn of sabotage from Russia, writes the newspaper. He also mentions the Czech trace

European secret services warn that Russia is planning sabotage across Europe, reports the Financial Times (FT).

According to the newspaper, the secret services warn that Russia has begun to prepare more actively for secret bomb or arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil. He intends to use intermediaries to do this, apparently not too worried about causing civilian casualties.

Kremlin agents have a relatively long history of similar operations on the territory of foreign countries, but in recent years they have been rather sporadic. But according to the Financial Times, there is growing evidence of increasingly frequent and coordinated efforts to disrupt life in other countries.

Security officials therefore call for vigilance. “We assess the risk of state-directed sabotage actions as significantly increased,” Thomas Haldenwang, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence, told the FT. According to him, Russia has recently been comfortably conducting operations on European soil “with a high potential for damage”.

Vrbětice events:

In England, for example, two men were accused in late April of starting a fire in a warehouse with aid shipments to Ukraine.

The English prosecution accuses them of working for the Russian government. In Sweden, meanwhile, security services are investigating a series of recent rail derailments that are suspected to be state-sponsored sabotage.

The Financial Times also quoted Martin Kupka, the Czech transport minister, who told the paper last month that Russia had tried to destroy signaling systems on Czech railways.

Martin Kupka (ODS) then specified to Seznam Zprávám what he had in mind. That, for example, Czech Railways repeatedly faced attacks on user applications.

“It is quite noticeable that since the Russian aggression in Ukraine began, there has been a noticeable increase in attacks by Russian or Russian-speaking cybercriminal groups,” Kupka said.

Russian hackers in the service of the GRU:

“The clear conclusion is that the Russians have clearly stepped up their activities,” said Keir Giles of the Chatham House Institute.

“It’s impossible to say whether it’s because they’re putting more resources into operations, or whether they’re more lax and getting caught, or whether Western counterintelligence has gotten better at detecting and stopping such actions,” he said. “Be that as it may, there’s a lot going on,” he noted.