Playing with fire under NATO's radar: How Russia is setting fire to arms factories in Europe
Western intelligence officials claim that Russia is using local criminals to carry out arson and sabotage at arms factories in Europe, in an attempt to disrupt supplies to Ukraine and test how far they can go without dragging NATO into a direct confrontation.
Russia has launched a new wave of attacks and sabotage against arms factories across Europe, using local criminal organizations to test the resolve of the NATO alliance. According to Western intelligence officials cited in the British newspaper The Telegraph, the attacks are carefully calculated to avoid triggering Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which mandates mutual defense by all member states.
Just this week, authorities in Latvia arrested three local citizens on suspicion of setting fire to a factory belonging to the drone manufacturer Milrem Robotics in neighboring Estonia. The factory, which supplies essential military equipment to Ukrainian forces, was set on fire in the dead of night in mid-August.
This incident joins a series of mysterious sabotage events against Ukraine's military supply chains on NATO territory. A source in the alliance noted that in recent years, Russia has accelerated its campaign of destabilization against Western countries through cyberattacks, assassination attempts, and ongoing acts of sabotage.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe has witnessed a worrying sequence of similar attacks. Just this month, explosions were recorded at major arms factories in Italy and Bulgaria. On August 10, a powerful explosion rocked the EMCO factory in Bulgaria, one of the country's largest manufacturers of 155mm artillery ammunition intended for Ukraine.
A few days later, a similar explosion occurred at an ammunition factory on the outskirts of Rome. Earlier this year, a fire almost completely destroyed a Czech factory producing drones and optical equipment, and in Lithuania, indictments were filed against six people who tried to set fire to a factory that supplied radio frequency scanners to Kyiv.
According to the report in The Telegraph, the Russian modus operandi has changed dramatically. Instead of sending secret agents who risk arrest, Russia's military intelligence agency uses intermediaries from criminal gangs via messaging apps like Telegram. These intermediaries recruit local criminals to do the dirty work and pay them in cryptocurrencies. According to the head of Latvia's security service, Normunds Mežviets, the recruits often do not even know they are working for the Kremlin.
These shadow attacks are intended to sow division within the NATO alliance. While Eastern European and Baltic countries are quick to point the finger at Moscow, countries like Italy and Germany are hesitant to do so publicly for fear of escalation. The situation creates a reality in which every incident that passes without a significant response is used by Moscow to gather intelligence on the West's red lines.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently warned that the alliance must respond in a "clear, fast, and decisive" manner to what is emerging as the new and dangerous norm in Putin's hybrid war, which could be a prelude to a direct military confrontation in the coming years.
