Vladimir Putin’s spies are plotting global chaos
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more: dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness," said Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counter-intelligence agency, in a rare update on the threat posed by Russia and the GRU, its military-intelligence agency. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets," he said on October 8th.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a crescendo of aggression, subversion and meddling elsewhere. In particular, Russian sabotage in Europe has grown dramatically. “The risk level has changed," Vice-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensones, the head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, said in September.
“We see acts of sabotage happening in Europe now." Sir Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence agency, put it more bluntly: “Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly." The Kremlin’s mercenaries have squeezed Western rivals out of several African states. Its hackers, Poland’s security services said, have tried to paralyse the country in the political, military, and economic spheres. Its propagandists have pumped disinformation around the world.
Its armed forces want to put a nuclear weapon in orbit. Russian foreign policy has long dabbled in chaos. Now it seems to aim at little else.
Start with the summer of sabotage. In April Germany arrested two German-Russian nationals on suspicion of plotting attacks on American military facilities and other targets on behalf of the GRU. The same month Poland arrested a man who was preparing to pass the GRU information on Rzeszow airport, a hub for arms to Ukraine, and Britain charged several men
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