Russia accused of increasing sabotage against NATO allies

In his 2004 memoir “My Life,” former US President Bill Clinton mentions that he asked Vladimir Putin if Russia would eventually join NATO. He responded that he was “not opposed to the idea but would not want his country to stand in line with smaller countries.”

Putin’s interest in joining NATO was genuine but conditional on having equal status as the US and other leading NATO powers, which goes against the military alliance’s charter. But Putin had already floated the idea of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in a 2000 BBC interview with David Frost. The British journalist asked him about it, and the Russian leader responded, “Why not? I do not rule out such a possibility.” Could everything happening now between Russia and Western countries, including former Soviet republics, boil down to, excuse the cliche, “if you’re not with me, you’re against me?”

The Kremlin’s sabotage campaign

Today, the Guardian has published an exclusive article revealing “previously unreported details and insights into how the Kremlin’s sabotage campaign plays out on the ground and the international effort to track down the network behind it.” The article speaks of Alexander Bezrukayvy, who in November of last year walked 48 hours from Croatia across dense and frosted Balkan forests and rugged hills to cross into Bosnia illegally. European security services accuse the man of working for Russia’s intelligence agency, the GRU.

Berazrukavyi is said to be part of a Moscow-financed cell accused of sending parcels with explosives camouflaged as sex toys and cosmetics on cargo planes across Europe, triggering fire at three locations. Polish intelligence also accuses him and his cell of sending packages to Canada and the United States.

Saboteers confess they worked for Russian intelligence

“Western security officials believe the exploding parcels could have led to a plane crash and mass casualties,” the Guardian said. It added that Brezrukavyi, who was arrested in Bosnia and extradited to Poland, and his criminal colleagues have confessed to working for the Russian intelligence and have detailed how their sabotage campaign works.

“In communications with those close to him, Bezrukavyi has claimed he was duped – unknowingly used to deliver packages coordinated via the Telegram messaging app, without understanding their true purpose,” the UK news organisation said. “Others in the group claimed the same.”

The Guardian says they actually spoke to one of the cell members, who confirmed the details. “We were being used like blind mules,” one of them told the Guardian. “We were set up.”

Suspicion the GRU is the mastermind

Over three days in July, European security agencies were shaken by three separate package explosions – each sent from Lithuania – that detonated in Birmingham, UK; Leipzig, Germany; and near Warsaw, Poland, the Guardian wrote.

Western intelligence agencies immediately suspected the GRU was behind those three incidents, which came amid a series of other hostile acts – including arson, cyber-attacks, data theft and the targeting of undersea cables.

“It was a fourth package – sent by another member of Bezrukavyi’s network – that helped Polish authorities piece together what was happening,” the Guardian added. ”Unlike the others, the package failed to detonate at a depot in Warsaw, allowing investigators to recover it intact and analyse its contents.”

In August 2024, Bezrukavyi and another culprit sent clothes in packages addressed to fictitious addresses in Washington and Ottawa. The costs of sending those packages were very expensive and made no sense given the contents. 

Because of that, Polish investigators intercepted them, but found no explosives, leading them to conclude they were dry runs to probe international delivery routes for future Russian operations in North America. 

A Russian cell member in hiding

The Guardian claims to have contacted one of the Russian cell members, whom they identify as Kirill, to protect his real identity. He is hiding in a third country outside Europe and Russia.

He disclosed more details of the parcel shipments to the news outlet. “The packages looked very random – sex toys from China, vibrators, lubricants, cosmetics … we thought it was pretty worthless shit.”

“It could be true that the purpose of the parcels was sinister,” Kirill admitted. “We just wanted easy money, work that wouldn’t involve drugs or weapons … but it turned out to be some packages to test some fucked up shit.”

Donald Tusk: ‘Air terror against airlines’

In January of this year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused Russia of masterminding global acts of sabotage, including “acts of air terror” targeting airlines.

While the Kremlin has dismissed Western allegations of sponsoring sabotage attacks, Tusk said he could confirm the validity of “fears that Russia was planning acts of air terror, not only against Poland, but against airlines around the world.”

Western security officials said they suspect Russian intelligence of a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes bound for North America after one such package caught fire in Germany and another in a UK warehouse.

Russia’s aggressive campaign

The non-profit think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies released a study on March 18th, 2025, affirming “Russia is engaged in an aggressive campaign of subversion and sabotage against European and U.S. targets, which complement Russia’s brutal conventional war in Ukraine.”

They said Russian attacks in Europe have tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling from 2022 to 2023.

In a rare statement published by AP, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, said in October that the UK is facing a “staggering rise” in attempts at assassination, sabotage and other crimes on its soil by Russia as well as Iran.

A rare MI5 statement

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said his agents and police have tackled 20 “potentially lethal” plots backed by Iran and Russia since 2022 and warned that it could expand its targets in the United Kingdom if conflicts in the Middle East deepen.

McCallum also said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 per cent in the 12 months leading up to October 2024, with Iran, Russia and China the main perpetrators.

Germany has arrested several people for allegedly spying or planning attacks on behalf of Russia. In May, Sweden’s domestic security agency accused Iran of using criminal networks to target Israeli or Jewish interests in the Scandinavian country.

London’s Metro Police yesterday arrested several Iranians under the Terrorism Act, and while Spanish officials have adamantly denied that the recent outage across Spain, Portugal and parts of France was due to a cyberattack, two pro-Russian cyber “hacktivist” groups, Dark Storm Team and NoName057, claimed responsibility for the blackout.