European intelligence officials warn that a Russian sabotage campaign is escalating

London (AP) – It was almost midnight when a truck driver listened to in the cabin was cracking the flames. Warehouse in East London Storage equipment for Ukraine. A fire took off and jumped – but he noticed that the fire was very large and withdrawn.

When the police arrived, they hit the gates of a nearby apartment and shouted at the inhabitants to evacuate. Parents caught the children and ran to the street.

Approximately 30 minutes after the fire started, Dylan Earl, a British man who agrees to organize the arson, says British officials are Russian operator.

“Perfect,” he read Russian.

A British Court on Tuesday I found three men guilty The arson that prosecutors said that Russia was declared by Russia’s intelligence services in March 2024 Disorder campaign In Europe, which Western authorities accused Moscow and their deputies. The other two men, including Earl, were previously found guilty of organizing the arson.

The fire is one of the more than 70 events associated with Russia, in which Moscow has documented Moscow since the occupation of Ukraine in February 2022.

Four European intelligence officials told the AP, who worried that the risk of serious injury and even death increased by identifying unmistimated sabotters. Fires near houses and businesses– Plant explosives or build bombs. The AP’s monitoring shows the 12 arson or serious sabotage incident last year, and two in 2023 and none in 2022.

“When you start a campaign, it creates its own dynamics and gets more violence over time,” one of the officials who have a senior position in a European intelligence agency said. The authorized, like the other two, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.

The Kremlin did not respond to the request for comments about the British case. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin has never been shown “any evidence ,, that Russia has been conducting a sabotage campaign and said,“ We ​​definitely reject any claim. ”

Recruit

Most of the sabotters accused of working on behalf of Russia are foreign, including Ukrainians. Intelligence officials contain young people who often do not have a criminal record of a few thousand dollars.

Hundreds of Moscow’s spy was thrown from Western countries after an operation, and Russia was forced to trust more and more trust in such amateurs. Poison Former Russian Intelligence Officer Sergey Skripal In England in 2018. This reacted to the death of a British woman and the West.

Russia had to make Modus Operandi a more flexible, denied system, from using the staff officers to the use of a proxy. ”

The documents shared during the London warehouse attempt offered a rare look at how young men were hired.

Among them, a man prosecutors were transcripts of messages that were active in the telegraph channels associated with the Wagner group, a mercenary in 2023, a Russian Intelligence Operator and the recruitment of the Wagner group in 2023.

Intelligence and National Security Faculty Member at the University of Brunel in London, Kevin Riehle said that the Russian military intelligence acting through Wagner is probably behind the land.

In his statement to the court, the employer using Handle Privet Bot once again published a telegram to participate in the war against the West.

Once connected, the employer and the Earl used to translate Earl with Earl and Google, according to the screenshots on his phone. His messages extended from fatally to almost comic book.

The employer told Earl that he was “wise and clever although he was young ve and suggested that he was watching the television show“ The America – – Soviet KGB intelligence officers are hidden in the USA

“You will have a guide,” the employer wrote.

In a message, Earl promised to be the best spy you have ever seen ile with the Irish Republican Army “killers, kidnappers, soldiers, drug dealers, fraudsters, car thieves”.

Injury potential

Earl and another man finally hired the others who went to the warehouse on the fire night. According to the messages shared in the court, Earl has never met men and it is unclear whether he visited the site.

Once in the warehouse, one of the men poured a jerrycan gasoline before arrest and throwing it on the fuel. Another recorded the arson to his phone. He was also caught in CCTV.

The warehouse was the site of a mail order company that provides internet by the satellite and sent material to Ukraine, including Starlink devices used by the country’s army.

Approximately half of the contents of the tank was destroyed only in a meter (yard) and a short distance to an additional building in the garden of a house and apartment.

More than 60 firefighters answered.

In his statement to the court, “I started to scream and shout everyone’s doors on the top of my lungs, ‘There is a fire, there is a fire, come out !.

A campaign is growing more dangerous

When Russia’s deterioration campaign began to follow the Ukrainian invasion, vandalism – falsify monuments or graffiti – He was more common, he said, senior European intelligence official.

“It has developed for arson and assassination last year,” he said.

Other events linked to Russia with the potential of serious injury or death include a plan to put an explosive Devices in cargo planes – Packages ignited on the ground – and land to shoot shopping centers in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Lithuanian prosecutors said that a Ukrainian young man was part of the plan to erect a bomb in an IKEA store outside the capital of Vilnius last year.

Early in the morning, he burned a big fire. Nobody was injured.

More fire and a kidnapped plot

Shortly after the fire in London, according to messages shared with the court, Earl and assistant conspirators later discussed what to do.

They talked about burning London businesses of Evgeny Chichvarkin, a Russian king who delivered materials to Ukraine.

Earl said hedonism wines and restaurant hiding should turn to “ashes ..

In the messages, Earl was evacuated between saying that they do not need any injured and if they want to harm someone ”, they could put nails on a homemade explosive device. He said there were houses on the wine shop.

This reflects a phenomenon specified by the senior intelligence official: intermediaries sometimes recommend ideas – each of them is “a little better” and more dangerous.

Russia’s intelligence services are trying to keep “solid operational control – – giving goals, deciding on devices and sabotage demanding recruitment – sometimes“ control is not valid, ”he said.

This seems to be like that in London.

After the fire, the Russian employer told Earl that he ı he ran to burn these warehouses without my consent ”.

For this reason, he said, “This will be impossible to pay for arson.”

Nevertheless, the recruitment officer told Earl that he wanted to aim for more businesses with connections to Ukraine.

“You are the dagger in Europe and we will carefully sharpen you,” the employer wrote. “Then we will start using you in serious wars.”