Intelligence experts have warned that Europe is under a growing threat from Russian sabotage operations, and believe those operations aim to secure concrete military results in Ukraine, political and economic costs to Europe, and nuisance value.
“We are experiencing the early stages of a systematic activation of Russian sleeper cells worldwide,” Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of Intelligence and National Security Studies at Coastal Carolina University, told Al Jazeera. “This is an unprecedented phenomenon in Western post-war history.”
The Financial Times this month cited intelligence of imminent Russian hybrid operations in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and a report from Chatham House, a London-based think tank, detailed incidents across Europe that “match predictions of what Russia would attempt to do in advance of an open conflict with NATO”.
The author of that report told Al Jazeera that Russia has a scattershot of aims, including causing trouble just to see what will happen.
“Russia has this view of security where anything they do to damage us is relatively speaking good for them because it makes them stronger,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House. “That in itself is an incentive to do things which are disruptive.”
In late April, two Finnair flights were forced to return home after GPS jamming prevented them from landing at Tartu, Estonia’s second-largest city. The airline suspended flights for a month to find an alternative landing system.
The Finnish transport agency blamed Moscow.
“It is possible that the interference observed in aviation currently [is] most likely a side effect of Russia’s self-protection. In practice, self-protection interference is used to prevent the navigation and control of drones controlled by [global navigation satellite systems] or mobile frequencies,” it said in a statement. “The interference has not only remained within Russia’s borders, but has also reached…
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