Perched on the open ramp on the back of a British Chinook helicopter, returning from the annual Spring Storm military exercises, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was pleased to see cooperation among NATO allies, but she later said she also had a different kind of war in mind.
Her country, which borders Russia, has seen an increase in sabotage, electronic warfare and espionage, all of which Moscow is blamed for.
As the Ukraine war continues to tilt in Russia’s favour, frontline states such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Finland and Poland, are stepping up their defenses.
Estonian Prime Minister calls on US and NATO allies to take tougher stance against Russia
Kallas said Russia was waging a “shadow war” against the West.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Tuesday he had information that “acts of vandalism may occur again” and urged caution.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at least nine people had recently been arrested on suspicion of assault and arson on the orders of Russian secret services, including Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles. The group also included “people from the criminal world,” he said.
British Ambassador to Estonia Ross Allen (left) and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalas (right) fly together from NATO exercises in southern Estonia on May 15, 2024. Both the UK and Estonia recently announced the arrest of individuals suspected of organizing subversive activities. of Russia. (AP Photo/Hendrik Osla)
NATO claimed this month that Moscow is escalating attacks against NATO from the Baltic states to the United Kingdom, but Karas told The Associated Press that no one thinks the attacks are interconnected. He said it was not. Russia denied the claim.
With many Russian operatives already under sanctions, Western officials and experts say the Kremlin is shifting strategy, employing other operatives for hybrid operations – non-military tactics such as cyberattacks, election interference and disinformation, and attacks on President Vladimir Putin’s opponents.
With important elections coming up in Western countries, officials say they believe the pace of such activity will only accelerate, with some calling for tougher measures.
Karas cited a warning from intelligence agencies to a European country that one of its warehouses was being targeted by Russian military intelligence. When a fire broke out at the warehouse two weeks later, country officials suggested “we don’t know if it was caused by the Russians,” she said. Karas did not reveal her country.
Western countries need to “seriously discuss a collaborative approach,” she said. “How far can we leave them alone on our land?”
Since regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonia has taken the challenge of finding Russian influence agents “very seriously” and is rebuilding its security services from scratch, US Ambassador George Kent said. told the Associated Press.
This year, a university professor was arrested in Estonia on suspicion of spying for Moscow, 13 people were arrested in an attack allegedly organized by Russian military intelligence operating under diplomatic cover, and a flight between Finland and the city of Tartu was arrested. was disrupted by Russian GPS jamming. signal.
In October, a gas pipeline and communications cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea after a Chinese vessel dragged its anchor for more than 115 miles, a case that is still under investigation. The ship was later spotted in a Russian port.
In May, Britain expelled a Russian defense attache after two British nationals were suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence and setting fire to a warehouse in London. In April, two German-Russians were arrested on suspicion of attempting to attack military facilities in southern Germany.
“What I want is the recognition that these are not isolated events,” Karas told The Associated Press. “Secondly, to share information about this among ourselves. Thirdly, to make it as public as possible.”
Estonia is known for aggressively pursuing and publicizing espionage activities, consistently arresting more Russian agents per capita than any other European country in the country of 1.3 million people. .
In an interview with The Associated Press, Estonian Defense Ministry Permanent Secretary Kusti Sarm said it was “very unlikely” that Estonia had so many operatives and that they could be caught so easily, adding that other countries should do more. He suggested that.
Former Estonian President Tomas Hendrik Ilves, who served as president from 2006 to 2016, told The Associated Press that some countries are not taking action because they want to do business with Russia again.
“People are afraid of decisive action,” said Ilves, who responded to a major cyber attack attributed to Russia in 2007. It’s tempting to push your luck,” he added.
He said Russian officials “will push their luck until something bad happens, but they won’t pay the consequences. We will pay.”
Estonian authorities and security experts say Russia is increasingly outsourcing attacks to locals, who are sometimes recruited relatively cheaply on video game platforms and social media, which could lead to unintended casualties. It is pointed out that there is. This makes it more difficult to identify connections between attacks and trace attacks to Russia.
Kristo Grozev, the Bulgarian investigative journalist who exposed the involvement of Russian intelligence in the poisoning of former British spy Sergei Skripal in 2018 and the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020, is also one of these outsiders. He was a victim of commission.
A former Austrian intelligence officer was arrested in March for providing Mr. Grozev’s address to Russian intelligence. Russian intelligence services allegedly hired robbers to break into Mr. Grozev’s apartment in 2022 and steal a laptop related to Mr. Navalny’s investigation. Grozef was forced to relocate from Vienna last year after authorities said they could not guarantee his safety.
Grozev said his son was playing computer games in his room when the 2022 break-in occurred, adding: “Imagine if he had left.”
He and other journalists discovered links between an attack on a Russian opposition leader in Argentina last year and a Polish organized crime group. When the information was relayed to Polish authorities, they discovered a link between the attack in Argentina and the attack on Russian opposition leader Leonid Volkov in Lithuania in March. Lithuanian security officials said the attack was probably organized by Russia.
Grozev said countries need to increase intelligence sharing between their security services, police and prosecutors, and create “active international task forces” to counter foreign influence. .
Attacks in Europe have been blamed on Russia for decades, but Estonian officials and security experts have suggested there is no collective mechanism to deal with them and that the EU He suggested that further action should be taken.
Karas said Russia “constantly” uses spies disguised as diplomats and that Estonian officials support Czech initiatives to restrict visas for Russian envoys to their host countries.
That would make it difficult to travel within the EU, where no ID is required at borders. It would also reduce the possibility that even if a country expels a spy, the spy will return to another country and continue operating under diplomatic cover.
Estonia is also pushing for separate sanctions within the EU to counter hybrid threats. Many Russian intelligence agents are already under sanctions, which will deter “intermediaries” such as local organized crime figures, disillusioned youth, and potential spies and collaborators from working for Moscow. This may be possible, said Jonathan Husebijov, Secretary-General of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Some countries feel such revelations could cause instability and undermine trust, but Grozev said it was an important deterrent.
Grozev said Russian intelligence agents working abroad “extremely dislike” incidents in which their names are published and shamed. He said such a person could be denied promotion and agents would find they could not guarantee immunity.
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The threat of sanctions and fewer opportunities to travel and study abroad may also play a role in discouraging young Russians from joining the security forces.
Kallas said Russia was trying to “sow fear” and undermine Western support for Kiev.
Mr. Vusebiov said Putin would use all available means, including shadow attacks, to “undermine our unity, disrupt our policies, and destroy the Western group as a functioning entity as we know it.” He said he was thinking of using other means.
