Russian saboteurs in western countries

[Brookswood]

This should not surprise anybody.

From the latest Wall Street Journal, June 2024:

As fire swept through a sprawling factory owned by a company that manufactures air-defense systems, thick, dark smoke spread through a neighborhood of luxury villas and diplomatic residences. Police warnings blared, ordering people to shelter indoors.

In the aftermath of last month’s blaze on the outskirts of the German capital, German investigators said the cause was likely an accident. But Western security officials now say the fire was set by Russian saboteurs trying disrupt shipments of critical arms and ammunition to Ukraine.

“It is part of a hybrid war waged against us by Russia against which we have to defend ourselves and which we must stop,” the Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said about the case. “Russia is repeatedly trying to sow unrest and undermine our citizens’ trust in the state.”

From the Mueller Report, March 2019

The first form of Russian election influence came principally from the Internet Research Agency, LLC (IRA), a Russian organization funded by Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and companies he controlled, including Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering (collectively “Concord”). The IRA conducted social media operations targeted at large U.S. audiences with the goal of sowing discord in the U.S. political system.

These operations constituted “active measures” (активные мероприятия), a term that typically refers to operations conducted by Russian security services aimed at influencing the course of international affairs.The IRA and its employees began operations targeting the United States as early as 2014. Using fictitious U.S. personas, IRA employees operated social media accounts and group pages designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and accounts, which addressed divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists. Over time, these social media accounts became a means to reach large U.S. audiences. IRA employees travelled to the United States in mid-2014 on an intelligence-gathering mission to obtain information and photographs for use in their social media posts.