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Russia's Wagner group conducting sabotage operations in Europe: Intelligence officials
Former Wagner operatives now recruit vulnerable Europeans for sabotage and arson to disrupt support for Ukraine, with 145 incidents tracked since 2022, officials said.
- In the past two years, European intelligence officials say Wagner recruiters have driven sabotage across NATO territory and EU countries, targeting politicians and aid warehouses with arson and Nazi impersonation.
- After the June 2023 failed rebellion and Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, Moscow's spy chiefs have increasingly turned to proxies and layered at least two cut-outs to preserve deniability.
- Using Telegram and other platforms, Wagner recruiters have targeted marginalised and economically vulnerable Europeans as `disposable` agents and recruited Britons in late 2023 via Wagner-run social media and Telegram channels, supported by a network linked to GRU.
- With this heads-up, officials have managed to thwart additional attacks while European security officials scrutinise the Wagner network's role, though Russia denies conducting sabotage.
- Intelligence agencies say the GRU and FSB have become highly active recruiting `disposable` agents in Europe, while the FSB turns to criminal and diaspora networks abroad after recruitment shortfalls in recent years.
53 Articles
53 Articles
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The Wagner Group is back, and this time it’s coming for Europe. Western intelligence officials have told the Financial Times that recruiters for the Russian militia group are now orchestrating subversive operations across the continent. Operatives are using social media and Telegram to target “disposable” and “economically vulnerable Europeans”, persuading them to act as proxies in carrying out sabotage and fomenting disorder. Beyond the immedia…
It would be this, according to the Financial Times, the new task entrusted by the Kremlin to recruiters and propagandists linked in the past to the Wagner company. The economic newspaper, citing officials of Western intelligence, reports that Moscow would have chosen men already specialized in convincing young people from the Russian hinterland to fight in Ukraine, redirecting their activity towards the heart of Europe. The status of the group r…
Officially dissolved after the death of Evgueni Prigojine, the Wagner group would continue to act in the shadows. According to the Financial Times, its former networks would now conduct sabotage operations in...
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