Europe awakens to the threat of sabotage by Russian agents
Suspicion has fallen on Russia over a series of confirmed or apparent acts of sabotage and espionage that took place late last year in Western Europe, experts say, with European countries increasingly taking measures in response.
The acts came after two events that hurt Russian interests. In September, explosions in the Baltic Sea put Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines to Germany out of use. The Kremlin blamed the sabotage on the United Kingdom, without evidence. Ukraine and Poland blamed Russia but also provided no evidence.
Then, on October 7, the Kerch Strait Bridge was bombed, interrupting Moscow’s ability to supply Russian-annexed Crimea, an attack Russia blamed on Ukraine’s military intelligence.
It may have been a coincidence, but the day after the Kerch bridge bombing, trains across northern Germany ground to a halt after cables that enabled train drivers to communicate were sabotaged.
“It is clear that this was a targeted and malicious action,” minister for transport Volker Wissing told a news conference, without identifying who might be responsible.
Two days later, the Danish island of Bornholm was plunged into darkness after the undersea cable that supplies it with electricity from Sweden was severed.
On October 19, internet cables were severed in the south of France at three locations simultaneously. Cloud security company Zscaler said the cable cuts, which severed digital highways linking Marseille with Lyon, Barcelona and Milan, had “impacted major cables with connectivity to Asia, Europe, US and potentially other parts of the world”.
Internet service provider Free posted photographs of data cables severed inside their buried concrete housings, calling the event “an act of vandalism”. France had suffered a similar attack in April.
During the same month, Norway’s domestic security authorities said they were investigating suspicious instances of drones being flown near airfields and energy infrastructure, and in December Lithuania reported an increase in unauthorised drone flights over military sites.
“In one of the military facilities, more violations were recorded in one month this year than in the whole of last year,” said the armed forces.
