Russian sabotage attacks surged across Europe in 2024

Hindustan Times

a day ago

IN AN INTERVIEW on July 21st, Martina Rosenberg, the head of Germany's military counter-intelligence service, warned of a 'sharp increase in cases of espionage and hybrid measures', a reference to sabotage. That came just three days after Britain imposed sanctions on 18 Russian intelligence officers for what it described as 'irresponsible, destructive and destabilising hybrid activity' around the world. A new report by Charlie Edwards and Nate Seidenstein of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a European think-tank, reveals how Russia's campaign of sabotage and subversion in Europe has escalated sharply since 2022—and why it might have fallen in recent months.
The IISS compiled their dataset by combining their own incident monitoring with that of Bart Schuurman of Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). It captures everything from GPS interference to assassination plots. Each incident is assigned a confidence level, reflecting the murkiness of covert activity. Some events once feared to be sabotage—such as fires in Lithuania and Latvia in 2022-23 and at arms plants in Wales and Germany last year—are excluded because there is no credible link to Russia.
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The number of suspected Russian sabotage operations in Europe almost quadrupled between 2023 and 2024, with more than 30 incidents recorded last year (see chart). These included damage to undersea cables, many in the Baltic Sea, as well as interference with water supply systems in Finland and Germany, and attacks on military equipment across northern and eastern Europe.
Russia is increasingly using criminal proxies, rather than regular intelligence officers (who were expelled en masse from European embassies in 2022) to carry out attacks. In July, for example, three men were convicted of setting fire to a Ukraine-linked warehouse in London on behalf of the Wagner group, a Russian mercenary outfit. This 'gig economy' model allows for greater flexibility and deniability. Its use may explain the recent surge in low-tech attacks.
Another factor may be Europe's creaking infrastructure. Decades of underinvestment have left vital systems fragile and vulnerable, note Messrs Edwards and Seidenstein. The fact that private companies own and operate much of European infrastructure compounds the problem—about 90% of NATO's military transportation uses civilian assets and more than half of satellite communications come from commercial providers. Those firms often prioritise efficiency over resilience. Sweden is currently investigating the suspected sabotage of over 30 telecommunications towers along its east coast, used by both civilians and the military.
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Perhaps the most surprising finding in the IISS report is that suspected Russian sabotage appears to have declined in the first half of 2025. This could partly be due to a delay in reporting and investigations, but the IISS reckons there are other possible explanations. One is deterrence: after NATO members launched Baltic Sentry, a series of air and naval patrols, incidents in the Baltic Sea dropped off. Another is political: the Kremlin might have chosen to turn down the temperature during talks with America about the war in Ukraine. A third is that Russian spies realised they had gone too far with some operations—such as the alleged placement of exploding packages at logistics hubs belonging to DHL, a shipping company, in Britain, Germany and Poland—and risked provoking a major crisis with NATO.
The IISS warns that the pause may be temporary. Russian intelligence services may simply be regrouping their criminal networks and refining tactics. If so, Europe may be in for a renewed offensive sometime soon. 'We are not in war,' noted Admiral Pierre Vandier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, at the NATO summit earlier this summer, 'but we are not in peace.'