Mysterious fires broke out in shopping centers and warehouses across Europe, believed to have been the handiwork of saboteurs from Russia.
Knewz.com has learned that the Polish Prime Minister was the first to suggest that the Western bloc might be under sabotage attack from Russian spies.
The first fire was caused in March 2024, at a warehouse in East London which was being used to supply aid to Ukraine.
Following the London incident, an Ikea outlet in Vilnius, Lithuania, went up in flames under mysterious circumstances.
The third attack targeted the largest shopping center in Warsaw, the Marywilska 44, following which Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, theorized that Vladimir Putin's elaborate network of spies and saboteurs could be behind the arson attacks all over Europe.
"We are examining the threads – they are quite likely – that the Russian services had something to do with the Marywilska fire," Tusk said in a statement in May, via The Telegraph.
However, given the massive crackdown on Putin's espionage network in Europe and the United Kingdom, Russia had to look for alternative avenues to carry out clandestine strikes on foreign soil.
According to an intelligence assessment shared with the Western governments, the Russian military intelligence agency GRU currently employs local criminals to do their bidding, replacing the need to plant the Kremlin's own saboteurs in each nation.
It is worth noting that a 20-year-old British national was arrested back in April for orchestrating the arson at the London warehouse upon orders from Russia. Court documents cited by CBS News at the time alleged that the man, who was a resident of Leicestershire in central England, was connected to the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
"He is accused of organizing and paying for an arson attack on two units on an industrial estate in Leyton, east London, on March 20, which required 60 firefighters to bring under control," CBS wrote in its report.
The London arson was also followed by the expulsion of Colonel Maxim Elovik, Moscow’s defense attache in the U.K.
The Telegraph added that a former Russian soldier was recently arrested in Paris after explosives detonated in his hotel room.
While the entities being employed by Russia to carry out sabotages and espionage attacks in the West are not as skilled as GRU operatives, they are still effective in accomplishing the objectives Russia aspires for in the Western bloc.
"The capabilities these gangs can provide are pretty low-level, but they can still achieve Russian foreign policy objectives, namely, destabilizing the West, deterring European decision-makers against supporting Ukraine and exacerbating polarisation and societal tensions across not only NATO but the European Union," Alexander Lord, lead Europe-Eurasia analyst at Sibylline, a geopolitical risk firm, told The Telegraph.
However, their lack of skill poses another significant problem, as a counter-intelligence officer explained in a statement to the outlet: "There is a greater chance of collateral damage and casualties as the proxies are not skilled in tradecraft, such as explosives."
On the other hand, the illegal operatives Russia has deployed as a replacement for its displaced spy network have proven to be especially sloppy and susceptible to capture.
Sources familiar with the current Russian espionage network told The Daily Express that the Kremlin's spies cannot stay operational for very long nowadays and their network can be disrupted with incredible ease.
"Almost every intelligence operation they have now is incredibly stupid and they are now almost an embarrassment. When they have tried to prop someone up, they don't stay operational [for long]. You can disrupt them a mile away," the source who spoke to the outlet stated.
It is worth noting that Estonia detained ten alleged saboteurs believed to be operating under orders from Russia as part of a “hybrid operation” by the Russian special services back in February.
Officials from the Security Service said at the time that the alleged saboteurs assumed a variety of roles in the covert operation in Estonia, from collecting intelligence to planning and executing attacks, based on the instructions they were provided by their handlers in Russia.