Russia pays Europe’s saboteurs in crypto, says Polish official

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1. Russia has used cryptocurrencies to pay saboteurs involved in its hybrid attacks on EU countries, in an attempt to prevent intelligence services from tracking the payments, according to a senior Polish security official.

   Poland’s national security bureau chief Sławomir Cenckiewicz told the Financial Times that Moscow was probably using this payment method to fund attacks, which have recently ranged from drone incursions to sabotage and attempts to hack water supplies and other critical infrastructure. He also said evidence shared with western intelligence services showed Russia was using its shadow fleet to launch drones into European airspace.

   Last month, at least 19 Russian drones violated Poland’s airspace, forcing Nato jets to shoot some of them down in the first direct confrontation between the alliance and the Kremlin’s assets since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drones have recently also forced airport closures in Denmark, Germany and elsewhere, with Nato holding talks on allowing a more forceful response to the Kremlin’s provocations.

   **Click here to read the full story for free with your email:** [https://www.ft.com/content/21579555-bf32-4b22-930d-79387bfe8817?segmentid=c50c86e4-586b-23ea-1ac1-7601c9c2476f](https://www.ft.com/content/21579555-bf32-4b22-930d-79387bfe8817?segmentid=c50c86e4-586b-23ea-1ac1-7601c9c2476f)

   Victoria from the FT social team

2. This has been one of the biggest and loudest arguments against cryptocurrencies since they first gained public attention. Will be interesting to see if the genie can be put back in the bottle.

3. Guess who else has gotten deep into Crypto this year?

   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgjgyyqgvyo

   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/world/asia/pakistan-trump-munir.html?smid=url-share

   And planning to funnel it through countries where zero oversight exists and he basically owns them.

4. Saboteurs are being recruited in encrypted chat app’s like Telegram and paid in crypto. russian agents doesn’t even have to located nearby, they can organize all of that from russia.

5. Bro, crypto payments are traceable onchain, so what exactly is the problem here? Pushing the false narrative of crypto being this untraceable magical money.

6. [https://www.academia.edu/40078465](https://www.academia.edu/40078465)

7. And if crypto did not exist they would be paid in another way anyway.

8. better close down crypto, in this universe a plastic bag full of money is traceable… there are no gold bars, no jewels, no luxury items…

9. I guess yall need to get prepared for a crypto ban.

10. Yeah, this is what crypto is good for. crime.

11. No wonder

12. Crypto is only used for illegal or grey area transactions. There is no other use case.

    The question I am asking myself is why it gets pushed on us so much. Do the criminals really have so much power?

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