The secret lives of Russian saboteurs

Moscow is using Telegram to recruit cheap and "disposable" agents to perform sabotage attacks in Europe, according to a European security official. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin has launched a campaign of "sabotage, arson and disinformation", sometimes focused on "specific targets" linked to support for Kyiv, but often "simply aimed at causing chaos and unease" among Russia's enemies in the West, said The Observer.

Although Russian "subversion, sabotage and assassination" projects "long predate" the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the past three years have seen a surge in such attacks, said The Telegraph.

Arson and emojis 

A "shadowy" new unit is based in a "sprawling glass-and-steel complex" on Moscow's outskirts, nicknamed the "aquarium", said The Wall Street Journal. Euphemistically known as the Department of Special Tasks, it's overseen by Col. Gen. Andrey Vladimirovich Averyanov, a veteran of Russia's Chechen wars, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Ivan Sergeevich Kasianenko, who is believed to have co-ordinated the UK operation to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

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Anonymous recruiters use Telegram and similar platforms to invite people in European countries to join the fight against Ukraine's Western allies. "On the ground", said The Observer, saboteurs are recruited online and although some of them "know exactly what they are doing and why", many don't realise they're "ultimately working for Moscow".

For example, when a man known only as Serhiy S. was arrested in Poland, officers found firelighter cubes, a juice bottle filled with paraffin, a lighter, two pocket knives, a mini handsaw and a face mask. Desperate for money, he'd been recruited via Telegram and asked to photograph shopping centres and industrial estates in Wrocław. Once a "suitable place" was agreed, he was to set it ablaze, for which he'd be paid $4,000 (£3,000).

In a separate incident, an undercover journalist posing as a 26-year-old Russian-speaking Estonian keen to earn some extra cash was offered money to spy on military bases, set fire to Nato vehicles, and even commit murder at $10,000 (£7,500) "a head", according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The recruiter's demeanour was "brisk", and "even rude at times", but some of his messages were "incongruously accompanied" by smiley emojis.

Trash fishing

Indrek Kannik, the director of Estonia's International Centre for Defence and Security, described the mass recruitment of saboteurs through social media as "trash fishing" because of its low success rates. But from Russia's perspective, these "so-called low-level agents are cheap, fast and safe", a source from a German security agency told the OCCRP. They often "don't even know who they are working for".

People with a criminal background are particularly attractive recruits, as head of MI6 Richard Moore told a Financial Times panel. The Kremlin "can't use their own people", he said, so "they're having to do with criminal elements". But although criminals "do stuff for cash" they're "not reliable" or "particularly professional". "Usually we are able to roll them up pretty effectively," he said.

As for Serhi, even though he hadn't gone through with the arson plan, he was handed an eight-year sentence. The judge said this was meant as "a clear and unequivocal signal to you and to all potential candidates that committing such acts is not worthwhile". Indeed, Serhi shouldn't expect any help from his Russian paymasters, a European security official told The Observer. "These people are disposable and Moscow doesn't care about them."