Is Russia fighting a 'sabotage' war in Europe?

European security services fear Russia could be trying to destabilise the continent with a series of mysterious fires and infrastructure attacks that have put a number of countries on "high alert".

Investigators looking into an "arson attack" in east London last month, an "inferno" that destroyed a Polish shopping mall in early May, a "sabotage attempt" in Germany and the appearance of "antisemitic graffiti" in Paris last week have already alleged the potential involvement of Russian agents, said The Guardian.

Europe could now be facing a "new weapon of Russia's war" in the form of "arson and sabotage".

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What did the commentators say?

Moscow is "plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent", said the Financial Times, citing various European intelligence agencies. Kremlin agents "have a long history of such operations", but evidence suggests a "more aggressive and concerted effort" is now taking place. And there is "little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities".

While the recent acts "might appear random", said The New York Times, security officials believe they are part of a clear push by Russia to "sow fear" across the continent, and create a sense of a "growing European opposition to support for Ukraine".

Some officials also believe that Russia is attempting to slow down the transfer of arms to Kyiv, and force European nations to "add security throughout the weapons supply chain", incurring additional financial costs. 

Moscow denied accusations of sabotage earlier this month. "All these statements, all those demarches on the part of European capitals are totally baseless and we decisively refute all of them," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

"Russia is definitely at war with the West," Oleksandr Danylyuk, from the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told NBC News. The attacks in Europe represent an "aggressive approach", a White House official said earlier this month, adding that Russia is "crossing new lines". 

Last month, police in Germany arrested two people suspected of plotting to plant explosives at US military facilities in Bavaria. The UK has arrested several people on "similar suspicions", said Al Jazeera. But those arrested are not thought to be members of the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), which "typically" plots sabotage operations.

Security services have said that carrying out such attacks has become increasingly easier. After the Cold War, foreign intelligence operations were done by "spies and their handlers", said The Guardian. But in the modern digital era "vandals can be hired" as "pay-as-you-go saboteurs" and can be paid in cash or cryptocurrencies.

If Vladimir Putin hoped that "troublemaking in Europe" would put pressure on the West to "restrain Ukraine and limit its own involvement in the war", the strategy "has not worked", said The Economist. Speaking to the publication last month, French president Emmanuel Macron said Western countries should not dismiss the possibility of deploying troops to Ukraine "in the event of a big Russian breakthrough". The UK's foreign secretary David Cameron has said Ukraine is "free to use" British-supplied arms on Russian targets. 

But there could be much worse to come, said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House. As a "much broader, and more serious Russian campaign of sabotage is spanning the whole of Europe", he wrote, "more disturbingly" the "patterns of behaviour match predictions" of what Russia would attempt to do "in advance of an open conflict with NATO".

What next?

Nato ambassadors are set to meet Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, next month, and Moscow's covert sabotage campaign will be a key discussion point.

They will hope to weigh up possible responses but, as several Western nations already have sanctions imposed on Russia, "forging a proper response" will be "difficult", said the NYT.

The West is in a "very delicate situation because things are already on edge" and the Kremlin is "already paranoid", Max Bergmann, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the paper. "Western leaders must tread very carefully with how they respond."