Putin has been accused of orchestrating a chilling continent-wide sabotage campaign including a plot to blow up cargo flights bound for the United States.
Security services say the latest revelations show the Kremlin is no longer just waging war on Ukraine, but secretly targeting the West after attempting to burn down shopping centres, poison water supplies and plant sleeper agents in Europe.
Various fires and explosions around the continent – including a blaze at an east London Ukrainian-owned warehouse – have been pinned on Putin.
In July 2024, parcels exploded in courier depots in the UK, Germany and Poland. Each bomb was powerful enough that – had it detonated mid-air – it ‘would have brought down a cargo plane,’ security sources told the FT.
Security chiefs say the aim was simple, to create catastrophic loss of life, paralyse international trade and send the chilling message that no Western country is out of reach.
Investigators later discovered the group responsible still had around 6kg of explosive material ready, which the sourced warned would be enough for the ‘next stage’ of the scheme – attacks on flights to the US.
Officials fear the fallout could have dwarfed any terror strike since the 9/11 attacks.
But the aviation plot was only one horrifying piece of a broader tapestry. Across Europe, state investigators say sabotage attempts have included plans to derail crowded trains, discharge dams, poison water supplies and even damage critical transport and electrical infrastructure.
Last July, two incendiary devices were shipped via a DHL logistics centre on July 22, 2024 to Birmingham, England, and Leipzig, Germany, resulting in fires
Putin has been accused of orchestrating a chilling continent-wide sabotage campaign including a plot to blow up cargo flights bound for the United States
In May 2024, a significant fire at the Marywilska 44 shopping centre in Warsaw was attributed to Russian intelligence services, leading Poland to close the Russian consulate in Kraków.
More recently, nations have contended with undersea cables in the Baltic Sea being severed and a string of cyber-hack attacks.
In October, a Finnish court dismissed a case against the captain and senior crew of the Eagle S, a Russian-linked tanker that had dragged its anchor for 90km back and forth over the bed of the Baltic Sea, breaking five undersea cables last year.
The cost of repairing one of them – the Estlink 2, a key electricity link between Finland and Estonia, will run to at least €60million and take months to complete.
Disturbingly, agents behind the attacks are often not seasoned operatives, but ‘disposable’ civilians including young men recruited online who are paid in cryptocurrency and given minimal training before being deployed on deadly missions.
In one recent case, two Ukrainian nationals were identified by Polish authorities as bombers involved in a railway sabotage attempt on the Warsaw-Lublin line.
They escaped arrest and four collaborators were detained, but they were later released by a court due to a ‘lack of evidence’.
As one retired Polish military counter-intelligence chief observed: ‘These people entered Poland without any problems, carried out their operation, and left without incident’.
Analysts say this multi-front sabotage campaign may represent a new doctrine for Moscow – an overt shift from traditional spying to widespread, deniable kinetic operations across Europe.
Some senior figures are already calling for a tougher, more forward-leaning response.
Keir Giles, Russia expert at Chatham House, told the FT: ‘The first important thing to consider is that we still don’t really appreciate everything which is going on.
‘What is publicly understood about this is just the tip [of an iceberg] … there’s still a lot that governments have chosen not to talk about.’
Behind closed doors, some military planners are already discussing radical counter-measures, including offensive cyber operations and even pre-emptive military actions against those directing the shadow attacks.
The chair of NATO’s military committee recently told the Financial Times the alliance is considering ‘far more muscular responses to Russian covert violence, including preemptive strikes as a deterrent’.
A key railway line linking Warsaw to south-eastern Poland was damaged by an explosion in what the prime minister has described as an ‘unprecedented act of sabotage’. Pictured: Special forces and police investigate at the scene of a destroyed section of railway tracks near the Mika railway station
In May 2024, a significant fire at the Marywilska 44 shopping centre in Warsaw was attributed to Russian intelligence services
The Estlink-2 power cable (pictured), which transmits energy from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea, went down on December 25, 2024, after an evident rupture
Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone said: ‘ We are studying everything […] On cyber, we are kind of reactive.
‘Being more aggressive or being proactive instead of reactive is something that we are thinking about.’
Dragone said that revenge cyber attacks would be the simplest option, because many NATO member nations hold the capabilities to launch them.
Retaliation for physical sabotage or drone incursions would be more complex – but not out of the question.
As the lawmaker and intelligence-oversight veteran Konstantin von Notz warned: ‘These incidents might look small, like little pin pricks. But you have to see this in the whole picture.
‘These are all individual components of a very concerted, hybrid campaign to divide society’.
Many in the intelligence community believe the escalation in the lengths Russia is willing to go to represents more than just another front in the war against Ukraine.
There is evidence of a longer-term strategy.
Many Russian spies have been booted out of Europe in recent years, but the Kremlin has sought to drop trained agents back into nations across the continent.
The head of one major European intelligence agency told the paper his officers were now seeing Russian agents assessing road bridges with, he presumed, the intention to plant mines in them.
He said railways all over the continent were being mapped to identify weak spots.
His agency and others are also tracking Russian attempts to insert highly trained sleeper-saboteurs into European states.