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Police thwarted a plan to kidnap Hide restaurant owner Yevgeny Chichvarkin, a high-profile Russian dissident. (Dylan Martinez)<\/p>\n
A group of young British men were arrested before the plan went ahead.<\/p>\n
They were part of the same gang that was found guilty this week <\/a>of carrying out an arson attack on a Ukraine-linked warehouse in east London, causing about 1 million pounds of damage.<\/p>\n Prosecutors said the March 2024 attack was planned by agents of the Wagner mercenary group \u2014 an organisation whose operations were taken over by the Russian Defence Ministry in 2023.<\/p>\n Acting through Wagner, Russian military intelligence was likely behind the plot, according to Kevin Riehle, a lecturer in Intelligence and National Security at London’s Brunel University.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old ringleader Dylan Earl also pleaded guilty to planning the Hide restaurant plot.<\/a><\/p>\n Dylan Earl, left and Jake Reeves, right, pleaded guilty to orchestrating the attack on behalf of Wagner. (AP\/Metropolitan Police)<\/p>\n Authorities suspected the incidents were part of a growing campaign of sabotage across Europe, as Russia escalated its so-called “shadow war” against the West<\/a>.<\/p>\n Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the London police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said they were a “clear example of an organisation linked to the Russian state using ‘proxies'”.<\/p>\n The Kremlin has not commented on the British case, but has previously rejected “any allegations” it is running a sabotage campaign.<\/p>\n The warehouse in East London was storing Starlink satellite equipment bound for Ukraine. (AP\/Metropolitan Police)<\/p>\n Sabotage skyrockets<\/p>\n Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western officials have accused Moscow of ramping up its sabotage operations.<\/p>\n The Associated Press has documented 70 incidents linked to Russia over the course of the Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n There were 34 suspected Russian hybrid attacks in Europe last year, nearly triple the amount in 2023, according to a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a> (CSIS).<\/p>\n Hybrid attacks are a type of “irregular warfare”, generally involving non-military tactics such as propaganda, deception and sabotage intended to destabilise adversaries.<\/p>\n Across Europe, there have been reports of attacks on rail networks, undersea cables, critical infrastructure, civil aviation GPS systems, and assassination attempts.<\/p>\n Inside the mission to stop Putin’s ‘ghost ships’ wreaking havoc on the seas<\/a><\/p>\n After a crucial undersea power cable was cut unexpectedly on Christmas Day, NATO forces sprang into action. Their mission? Stopping Russia’s “ghost ships”.<\/p>\n Hundreds of car exhaust pipes have been stuffed with expanding foam in Germany, and parcels have exploded across Europe ahead of being packed on cargo flights.<\/a><\/p>\n Russia has consistently denied its involvement and it did not respond to the ABC’s requests for comment.<\/p>\n Sascha Dov Bachmann, a professor of law and security at the University of Canberra, said these were classic Russian “cloak and dagger” clandestine operations.<\/p>\n “It’s sabotage, it’s cyber attacks, it’s targeted assassination and, of course, espionage \u2026 and then comes this whole spectrum of political warfare and influence operations,” he told the ABC.<\/p>\n “They are the sorts of operations you would normally associate with James Bond movies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dutch authorities are investigating whether Russian sabotage was behind a rail disruption during the NATO summit. (AP: Geert Vanden Wijngaert)<\/p>\n The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has repeatedly warned there is “a shadow war going on against our societies”.<\/p>\n What we know about the attacks on France’s high-speed rail network<\/a><\/p>\n Hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony was due to begin, a coordinated arson attack brought down France’s rail network. Here’s what we know so far.\u00a0<\/p>\n With incidents continuing to mount, she recently declared Europe was “under attack”.<\/p>\n Over the past fortnight, new sabotage cases were opened in Germany and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n Dutch authorities are investigating possible sabotage of the rail system.<\/p>\n A power outage left the country’s main airport with limited train services as a two-day summit of NATO leaders was opening.<\/p>\n There was a similar incident ahead of the Paris Olympics last July, with France’s high-speed rail network targeted by arsonists <\/a>ahead of the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n Travellers wait at the train station in Paris after the rail network was severely disrupted ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony. (AP: Yasin Dar)<\/p>\n The alleged acts of sabotage were mostly aimed at undermining European support for Ukraine, military officers and experts have said.<\/p>\n Professor Bachmann said the tactics were intended to undermine trust in governments.<\/p>\n “It is meant to make people feel like they are not being protected,” he said.<\/p>\n “It is seen as something which is often not considered war, but just short of war.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n London attackers lured online<\/p>\n Western intelligence agencies say this operation is different.<\/p>\n Britain’s intelligence agency warns on Russia<\/a><\/p>\n MI5 director general Ken McCallum says Britain is experiencing a staggering rise in assassination attempts and other crimes by Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n The attacks have been more reckless and, in an “eye-catching shift”, Russia has been turning to “proxies for their dirty work”, the head of Britain’s MI5 security agency, Ken McCallum, said.<\/p>\n Often they are young men and teenagers who are recruited through Telegram, the dark web, or chat functions in popular online games, according to Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n Last month, Reuters reported that since February 2022, dozens of teenagers in Ukraine and across Europe had been arrested in Russia-linked cases of sabotage and spying.<\/p>\n The court heard how Earl exchanged messages with suspected Russian operatives about the warehouse in east London. (AP\/Metropolitan Police)<\/p>\n Documents shared during the London warehouse trial offered a glimpse into how young men are recruited.<\/p>\n Trio guilty of UK arson attack linked to Russian mercenary group <\/a><\/p>\n The three men set ablaze a warehouse unit in London that stored aid and satellite equipment to be sent to Ukraine.<\/p>\n Among those were transcripts of messages between a man prosecutors said was a Russian intelligence operative and his recruit, Earl, who was active on Telegram channels associated with the Wagner group.<\/p>\n The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and others reported last year the account had been advertised on Grey Zone, a channel affiliated with Wagner.<\/p>\n The recruiter and Earl communicated predominantly in Russian, with Earl using Google to translate, according to screenshots on his phone.<\/p>\n Their messages ranged from the deadly serious to the almost comical.<\/p>\n The recruiter told Earl he was “wise and clever despite being young” and suggested he watch the television show The Americans, which is about Soviet KGB intelligence officers undercover in the US.<\/p>\n “It will be your manual,” the recruiter wrote.<\/p>\n The warehouse in east London was storing goods for Ukraine. (AP: London Metropolitan Police)<\/p>\n Shortly after the fire in London, Earl and his co-conspirators discussed what they would do next, according to messages shared with the court.<\/p>\n Detectives found Earl was also raising the possibility of kidnapping Yevgeny Chichvarkin, a Russian tycoon who delivered supplies to Ukraine, and “exiling him back to Russia to face prison”.<\/p>\n They talked about targeting his London businesses \u2014 Hedonism Wines and restaurant Hide \u2014 which Earl said would be turned to “ashes”.<\/p>\n Hedonism Wines and the restaurant Hide are owned by Russian dissident Yevgeny Chichvarkin.\u00a0 (Hide)<\/p>\n ‘Pawns’ in psychological warfare<\/p>\n Jon Richardson, a visiting fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, said the use of young foot soldiers would allow Russia to distance itself from attacks.<\/p>\n Russia has expanded its spy network at a ‘reckless’ rate<\/a><\/p>\n Russia has changed how it deployed its spy operations “to prepare for destabilisation” in Europe and react to the “counterintelligence regime” from Ukraine’s allies.<\/p>\n “This recruitment has stepped up \u2026 and these activities are carried out less blatantly with Russian fingerprints on them,” he said.<\/p>\n Often the damage caused by amateur saboteurs was minimal.<\/p>\n But their role, especially Ukrainian refugees across Europe, was to be “pawns” in wider psychological warfare, Professor Bachmann said.<\/p>\n “The approach to use those young people wasn’t necessarily to cause significant damage with the attacks,” he said.<\/p>\n “Having young Ukrainians being arrested under espionage, or otherwise, is enough.”<\/p>\n It all helped build distrust among society of governments’ support for Ukraine, he added.<\/p>\n “Immediately there’s this sort of doubt and extra suspicion against Ukrainian refugees,” he said.<\/p>\n Arrests have been made in Lithuania and elsewhere.\u00a0 (AP: Mindaugas Kulbis)<\/p>\n Lithuanian prosecutors said a Ukrainian teenager was part of a plan to plant a bomb in an IKEA store just outside the capital of Vilnius last year.<\/p>\n It sparked a massive fire in the early hours of the morning. No-one was injured.<\/p>\n West running out of options<\/p>\n European allies have intensified intelligence sharing to counter the growing hybrid-warfare threat.<\/p>\n And extensive economic and diplomatic sanctions against Moscow have already been imposed.<\/a><\/p>\n Australia is at risk in sabotage ‘shadow war’<\/a><\/p>\n Experts say the use of sabotage as a weapon of war could become more common, after a spike in mysterious incidents across Europe since the beginning of the Ukraine War.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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