Intelligence chiefs have warned ministers they fear Britain and other key Ukraine allies are being targeted by Russian saboteurs following a series of suspicious incidents in recent months.
These include a wave of fires at weapons factories and military-related industrial sites in the West that supply Ukraine. There have also been attacks on computer systems, train derailments and even interference of satellite signals on civil air flights.
Last night, a senior British security source said Western intelligence agencies feared a series of industrial fires were linked to Moscow, saying “the bastards” were trying to burn down Europe.
“A lot of fires that we thought were accidents and unrelated turned out to be related,” he said.
This source added that intelligence chiefs had warned ministers that Moscow was increasingly hiring gangsters and far-right extremists to carry out attacks against Western interests.
Pictured: A fire broke out at a plant in Berlin containing poisonous sulfuric acid and copper cyanide reportedly linked to missiles supplied to Ukraine.
There have also been attacks on computer systems, train derailments and even interference of satellite signals on civil air flights (file photo)
He said Russia was acting in a more arrogant manner than in the past, even attacking suppliers of military uniforms. “In terms of damage, so far it has been marginal, but in terms of tactics it is very serious because they have become much more reckless.”
One cabinet minister insisted he could not discuss the alleged sabotage and arson, even in general terms, “for reasons of national security.”
But Conservative MP Bob Seely, a Russian-speaking disinformation specialist and member of the foreign affairs committee, said Britain must wake up to the threat.
“We need to understand that the Russian state believes it is in conflict with the United Kingdom and other major Western nations,” he added.
‘We have to defend ourselves. We do not know the true scale of these operations. Some seem amateurish, but they will become more sophisticated. “They are partly for propaganda purposes to show that (Vladimir) Putin is responding to the West, but they are also intended to make demands on our security forces.”
Last week, Home Secretary James Cleverly ousted Moscow’s long-serving defense attaché and removed diplomatic protection from several Russian-owned properties being used as spy bases.
Cleverly told Parliament that “malign activities”, such as the leaking of state documents and cyber attacks on parliamentarians, along with the planning of sabotage actions in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy and Poland, “bear all the hallmarks of a deliberate campaign of Russia designed to “bring the war home” across Europe and undermine our collective resolve to support Ukraine.
Recent incidents on British soil include an arson attack in March on an east London warehouse containing aid shipments for Ukraine. Prosecutors charged two men accused of arson with working for the Russian government.
Intelligence chiefs have warned ministers they fear Britain and other key Ukraine allies are being targeted by Russian saboteurs following a series of suspicious incidents in recent months (file photo)
Last week, Home Secretary James Cleverly ousted Moscow’s long-serving defense attaché and removed diplomatic protection from several Russian-owned properties being used as spy bases.
Last month, there was an explosion at a factory in south Wales run by BAE Systems, Britain’s largest defense company, which makes weapons shipped to Ukraine. Yesterday, a spokesman for BAE Systems said an investigation was underway but there was “no evidence of sabotage.”
Two days earlier, another fire broke out at a General Dynamics plant in Pennsylvania that manufactures 155mm caliber artillery shells that are shipped to Ukraine.
The cause “has nothing to do with external influences,” the company spokesperson insisted.
Earlier this month, another fire broke out at a factory near Berlin run by a company that makes air defense systems supplied to Ukraine.
223 firefighters were needed to tackle the inferno, with clouds of black smoke and fears of toxic contamination. Police said they suspected “negligent arson” as there was “no indication of sabotage or attack.”
The wave of alleged attacks on the Kremlin goes far beyond attacks on military supplies. Sweden, which joined NATO after the invasion of Ukraine, is investigating whether state-backed sabotage is behind a series of train derailments.
Poland, a key supporter of kyiv and the arms supply route, disrupted a network of saboteurs thought to be planning an attack on its railway system.
“Russia has been at war with us for a long time, but people are finally seeing the seriousness of the situation,” said Keir Giles of the Chatham House think tank.
Russian interference has affected hundreds of civilian flights in Europe, especially over the Baltic States, Poland and Scandinavia. A Finnish airline has suspended flights to an airport in Estonia due to persistent GPS interference.
Russia has also been accused of cyberattacks on the British Electoral Commission and even blocking the Royal Family’s website.
A Baltic diplomatic source said: “Moscow cannot start a concerted war against NATO, but it is trying all other possible measures to challenge the West and disrupt our lives.”
There can no longer be any doubt: Putin is waging war on us.
The West has been pathetically complacent about the true nature of Putin’s regime since it came to power at the beginning of this century.
A typical example was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who naively brushed aside warnings about Russian espionage to quickly embrace Putin, even giving him a pair of silver cufflinks from Downing Street as a birthday present in 2001.
Five years later, Putin ordered the assassination in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a spy who had defected and detailed the Kremlin assassinations.
Then came its 2008 invasion of Georgia, followed by its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and illegal seizure of Crimea.
I watched these events unfold in kyiv and Simferopol, then saw the corpses of innocent people and even dogs scattered across the fields of Donbass after their thugs shot down a civilian airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
A typical example was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who naively ignored warnings about Russian espionage to quickly embrace Putin, even giving him a pair of Downing Street silver cufflinks as a birthday present in 2001.
Yet the still sleepy leaders of the democracies of Washington, London, Paris and Berlin pretended that Putin was a respectable leader, while banks, real estate agents, football clubs and greedy lawyers helped launder the billions stolen by their oligarchs. scapegoats.
Never mind the assassination of Putin’s rivals, the crushing of democracy and human rights in Russia, the atrocities inflicted by his armed forces in Syria, or even the sinister use of a deadly nerve agent in Salisbury that killed a British citizen innocent.
It took the full-scale attack on kyiv in February 2022 to finally wake most Western nations from their slumber.
Even then, the response has been faltering and support insufficient for the Ukrainian people on the bloody front lines in a war that has become a momentous global struggle between autocracy and democracy.
Now there is no doubt: whether we like it or not, Russia is waging war against the West on many fronts, and we must respond with much more strength and intelligence in defense of freedom.
