A part of the European political community often emphasizes that it is not necessary to provide Ukraine with weapons in order not to involve Europe in a war. They do not understand that Russia’s aggression against Europe is already ongoing.
Moreover, Russia acts in Europe no less brazenly than in Ukraine before the full scale.
So far, these are covert operations of the intelligence services. Sometimes defeats result in murders, sabotage of regime facilities, espionage, attempts to steal sensitive information, formation and influence on public opinion, formation of dormant networks and trained saboteurs.
This is only a part of the tip of the iceberg of rampant Russian saboteurs in Europe.
Poisoning with radioactive polonium-210 in a sushi bar in London in November 2006 of the former officer of the FSB of Russia, Oleksandr Litvinenko. On 4 March 2018, in the British city of Salisbury, military intelligence officer and double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the poisonous substance “Novichok”.
Since the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Russia has carried out a series of brazen aggressions against enterprises and entrepreneurs who provided armed aid to Ukraine.
On 16 October and 3 December 2014, there was an explosion at ammunition warehouses. In the village of Vrbetice in the region of the city of Zlin in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. The first explosion killed two people. Later, the investigation established that these diversions were organized by Russian agents.
The Russians sabotaged the Arsenal warehouse near the city of Muglizh in Bulgaria four times: in 2011, twice in 2015, and again in 2020. In 2015, the Russians poisoned Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, whose campaign owned the above-mentioned warehouses.
As Ukrinform reported, in 2015 unknown persons tried to poison the owner of Emco Emilian Gebrev, his son, as well as a business partner. The Bulgarian prosecutor’s office blamed the Russian military intelligence for this. The reason for the attempt is seen in the export of weapons to Ukraine.
No less audacious was the secret operation to kidnap forty-year-old Artem Uss, the son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region, Oleksandr Uss, who was detained in October 2022 at the Milan airport on an American warrant, on suspicion of smuggling confidential military technology and violating sanctions.
Uss was kept under house arrest in a four-star hotel in Sardinia, which belonged to his family’s campaign. On 21 May, the Court of Appeal of Milan, after long delays, finally decided to extradite Alexander Uss to the USA, and already on 22 May, he managed to disappear and escape from house arrest. Representatives of the Serbian drug mafia organized an escape in several cars.
However, representatives of the Russian embassy in Rome developed and accompanied this operation in the spirit of the Cold War. In addition, a significant role was played by the deliberate delay of the case by the Italian bureaucracy, which gave time to carefully prepare the operation.
Recently, in Poland, a case regarding the activities of the Russian spy network, which numbered 16 people, was brought to court.
The spies operated from January to March 2023 in Bila Pidliaska, Chelm, Medica, Przemyśl, Rzeszów, and Warsaw, as well as in other settlements of the country, including Pomerania. They were engaged in the reconnaissance of critical infrastructure objects, including military facilities and seaports, and installed web cameras on transport routes with Western military aid to Ukraine. They had the task of installing GPS tags on these vehicles, conducted anti-Polish propaganda and prepared sabotage.
The network was liquidated in March 2023.
In this case, among others, a Russian hockey player who plays for one of the clubs in the first league in Silesia was detained. He specialized in the reconnaissance of objects related to the defence of the country. In addition, he conducted reconnaissance of critical infrastructure facilities.
Janis Adamsons, ex-deputy of the Diet of Latvia, has already received a significant prison term for espionage in favour of the Russian Federation.
And this is only a part of the gloomy picture of the direct war of Russia against Europe.
The extent of the problem is evidenced by the Russian espionage network built in European countries, the size of which exceeded the number of Soviet spies and agents during the Cold War.
Back in March 2022, Ukrainian intelligence revealed the identities of 620 Russian spies in European countries. The GUR website published a list of agents who are employees of the Russian FSB – their names, passport data, information about their places of work and residence, as well as their cars.
From a third to a half of the representatives of the diplomatic corps of the Russian Federation in Europe turned out to be spies.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, as of April, within a few months of the full-scale war, 423 Russian diplomats who were probably undercover intelligence officers were expelled from European countries: Austria – 4, Bulgaria – 10, Belgium – 21, Greece – 12, Denmark – 15, Estonia – 17, Ireland – 4, Spain – 25, Italy – 30, Latvia – 16, Lithuania – 5, Luxembourg – 1, the Netherlands – 17, Norway – 3, North Macedonia – 5, Poland – 45, Portugal – 10, Romania – 10, Slovakia – 38, Slovenia – 33, Germany – 40, France – 35, Czech Republic – 1, Montenegro – 4, Sweden – 3, EU – 19.
Blurred diplomatic wording from “persons impersonating diplomats” to “threats to security interests” testified to the exposure of a vast network of Russian agents operating under the cover of embassies and diplomatic immunity.
According to Der Spiegel journalists, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation oversees the work of about 3,000 spies abroad, and the Main Intelligence Directorate has another thousand. Most agents disguise themselves as diplomats.
Of course, the rapid operation to decapitate an aggressive spy network caused trouble for Russian subversive activities in Europe. But the network of agents, illegals, locally recruited agents of influence, sleeper sabotage groups, bought politicians, real estate that can be used for espionage needs, commercial enterprises and accounts, cyber activity, everything that has been in the works for a long time continues to work.
Russia uses diplomatic immunity and Schengen rules to move freely in Europe. Currently, only a few countries, such as the Czech Republic, demand an end to the rampage of Russian saboteurs, limiting the movement of diplomats from the Russian Federation to their countries of residence. Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, under the guise of refugees, Russia has flooded European countries, replenishing the agent network, which was supposed to fill the ranks of exposed agents. This slow-acting mine is still waiting to be detonated. Crime and ethnic gangs, corrupt politicians, and useful idiots continue to work, undermining the unity of Europe and the national security of their own countries.
Some countries, such as Austria and Switzerland, under misleading slogans of neutrality, continue to be Russian spy bases in Europe. For example, only in Switzerland, where important international organizations are concentrated, Russia keeps at least 80 trained spies with diplomatic cover. The situation is similar in Vienna.
Only now are European countries beginning to make public the names of high-ranking agents involved in murders, sabotage, and terrorist acts.
Thus, in Bulgaria, the court issued warrants for the arrest of 6 Russians involved in blowing up ammunition depots.
The Sofia City Court has approved the issue of European arrest warrants for 6 Russians, whom Bulgaria accuses of terrorism and involvement in four bombings of ammunition depots between 2011 and 2020, and who were in the country under false names and fictitious biographies.
The Ukrainian Security Intelligence Service fully proved the involvement of Russian special services in the 2014 explosions at military warehouses in the Czech Republic, where weapons for Ukraine were stored, as well as military warehouses in Svatovo, Luhansk region, in 2015.
The charges were brought against Ihor Sergun, the former head of the headquarters of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (he headed the department until 2016);
Oleksiy Dyumin – a former bodyguard of Putin, who from 2013 to 2015 served as the head of the special operations forces of the Russian GRU;
Valery Flyustykov – commander of the special operations forces of the Russian Armed Forces;
Andriy Averyanov – Major General, Commander of the “161st Centre for Special Purpose Training” of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The latter is part of the Russian dictator Putin’s close circle and is often present at official meetings of the highest level.
More than 25 direct organizers and sabotage executors from among the Russian special services received suspicion.
Among them are the world-famous lovers of the “Salisbury Spires” Anatoly Chepyga and Oleksandr Mishkin. During a joint investigation with representatives of the Czech law enforcement officers, the SBI employees established that it was Russian saboteurs who blew up military warehouses in the Czech Republic in 2014. Mishkin and Chepiga, already known for the attempt to poison the Skripals in Solbury, played an important role in this sabotage operation.
Russian GRU officers Oleksandr Mishkin, known as Oleksandr Petrov, and Anatoliy Chepiga, known as Ruslan Boshirov, visited the ammunition depot in the Czech city on October 15, 2014, before the explosion as tourists.
Outright terrorism has already become the business card of Russian special services in Europe. For example, last year’s distribution of letters with bombs in Spain was also the hand of undercover Russian agents.
And now, the direction of Russian intelligence activities has significantly shifted from analytical, hunting for secrets of a political, military or economic nature, penetrating the state structures of other countries, recruiting foreign citizens who have direct access to secret data, the private lives of Western leaders, to combat – direct sabotage and terrorist operations on the territory of enemy countries. At the same time, the influence across the media and public opinion is increasing to sow discord among EU members.
Special interest in Russia in military secrets in the EU, which can be considered as preliminary intelligence before the invasion. An example of this is the arrest and exposure of a Russian agent in the Italian Navy, Captain Walter Biot, in March 2021.
He was sentenced to 30 years for passing confidential NATO information to Russian diplomats in exchange for a monetary reward.
Russia continues to form an agency, playing on greed, ideology, fraud, economic troubles or the desire for revenge.
Currently, Russian agents are increasing the degree of aggressiveness of their operations on the territory of Europe.
Moreover, understanding the attention focused on Russian diplomats and “refugees”, Russia tries to rotate diplomats, for example from a country where they are on the verge of extradition to another country, or as was the case in Slovenia, when Russian spies collected information under the cover of passports of citizens of Argentina.
Of special interest to Russia, are the countries of the former social camp in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Russia considers this territory as a zone of its interests and actions, without choosing methods.
In general, while Europe is wary of being drawn into the war, the covert intelligence and Chekist operation under Putin’s sanctions continue in full swing in Europe. It depends only on the speed and decisiveness of Europe’s reaction whether espionage will not turn into open aggression…
