Special Operations: Evolving Russian Sabotage Strategy
Ezoic
July 6, 2025: Russia has increased its sabotage and destabilization efforts against the NATO nations that support Ukraine in its resistance to the Russian invaders. Successes have been few and disappointments many. The invasion caused formerly neutral Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Now Russia faces a wall of NATO nations from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. Russia’s only allies are threadbare North Korea and a smoldering Iran. Russia expected to obtain more missiles from Iran, but now what missiles Iran has left are being fired, without much effect, at Israel. This came about when Israel recently launched a 200 aircraft attack on Iran to devastate the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The Americans joined in on that one, agreeing that Iranian nuclear weapons were bad for business and the world economy. China might quibble about that because they get most of their oil from Iran. For that reason the Iranian oil operations were largely unaffected.
Meanwhile Russia, unable to subdue Ukraine with military force, concluded that the most vulnerable aspect of the Ukrainian war effort was the support received from NATO countries. For over a year Russia has been attacking NATO nations clandestinely with disinformation and sabotage using a combination of specialized diplomats and sleeper agents who have long been living in Europe. The sleeper agents usually don’t carry out the sabotage themselves but hire criminal networks in Europe to do it. European police and security agencies were aware of these plans and, when these sabotage activities were detected, the criminals were sought, and some were arrested. Some of these men confirmed the Russian source of these attacks. With these Russian efforts no longer secret, Russian recruiting efforts were crippled, but not halted, because of fears that anyone who worked for Russia would be quickly identified and arrested. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, public opinion in Europe has been hostile to Russia. Undeterred, the Russian sleepers faded deeper into the background and used one or more levels of intermediaries to identify criminal groups who were willing to carry out the sabotage if the financial rewards were high enough.
Russia now depends more on legitimate channels like its embassy personnel and overseas members of the Russian Orthodox Church to assist, often involuntarily, to help Mother Russia complete its mission to self-destruct by 2027. That’s not an official mission, but the one Russia has earned. The economic sanctions and continued resistance by Ukrainian forces have crippled the Russian military and led their economy on a path that eventually leads to collapse.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsf/articles/2025070604130.aspx#gsc.tab=0
