A campaign of sabotage Moscow's new tactics in fight with the west

Serhiy was just about to board a coach bound for Germany when Polish security services detained him at the bus station in the city of Wrocław.

- Shaun Walker

In his backpack, the officers found firelighter cubes, a juice bottle filled with paraffin, a lighter, two pocket knives, a mini handsaw and a face mask. Later, when they searched the mobile phone of the 49-year-old Ukrainian refugee, they found a pdf of a Russian-language book called Modern Pyrotechnics. It contained detailed instructions on how to start fires and detonate explosives.

Serhiy S - as he is identified in accordance with Polish law on naming criminal suspects - is one of dozens of people who have been rounded up across Europe over the past two years and accused of being foot soldiers in a new front of Russia’s war against the west.

European intelligence agencies say Moscow has launched a campaign of sabotage, arson and disinformation against the continent. Sometimes, it is focused on specific targets related to support for the Ukrainian war effort, but more often it is simply aimed at causing chaos and unease.

Taken together, the incidents point to how Russia's intelligence services have moved towards a new kind of attack on the west, one that is dangerous but piecemeal and hard to prove.

On the ground, the acts are carried out by people who are recruited online and often paid in cryptocurrency.

Some know exactly what they are doing and why, others do not realise they are ultimately working for Moscow. The professional intelligence officers who direct the operations never need to leave Russian territory.

This account of Russia's sabotage offensive is based on thousands of pages of court documents from Britain and Poland, interviews with current and former security and intelligence officials in several European countries and the US, and discussions with people who knew some of the perpetrators.