Intelligence officials worry a sabotage campaign blamed on Russia is
growing more dangerous
[July 09, 2025]
By EMMA BURROWS
LONDON (AP) — It was almost midnight when a truck driver resting in his
cab heard the crackling of flames at a warehouse in east London storing
equipment for Ukraine. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and leapt out —
but realized the blaze was too big and retreated.
When police arrived, they banged on the doors of a nearby apartment
building, shouting at residents to evacuate. Parents grabbed children
and ran into the street.
About 30 minutes after the fire started, Dylan Earl, a British man who
admitted to organizing the arson, received a message from a man U.K.
authorities say was his Russian handler.
“Excellent,” it read in Russian.
On Tuesday, a British court found three men guilty of arson in the March
2024 plot that prosecutors said was masterminded by Russia’s
intelligence services — part of a campaign of disruption across Europe
that Western officials blame on Moscow and its proxies. Two other men,
including Earl, previously pleaded guilty to organizing the arson.
The fire is one of more than 70 incidents linked to Russia that The
Associated Press has documented since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022.
Four European intelligence officials told AP they’re worried the risk of
serious injury or even death is rising as untrained saboteurs set fires
near homes and businesses, plant explosives or build bombs. AP's
tracking shows 12 incidents of arson or serious sabotage last year
compared with two in 2023 and none in 2022.
“When you start a campaign, it creates its own dynamic and gets more and
more violent over time,” said one of the officials, who holds a senior
position at a European intelligence agency. The official, like two
others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.
The Kremlin did not reply to a request for comment on the British case.
Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov previously said the Kremlin has never been
shown “any proofs” supporting accusations Russia is running a sabotage
campaign and said “certainly we definitely reject any allegations.”
Recruiting young amateurs
Most of the saboteurs accused of working on behalf of Russia are
foreign, including Ukrainians. They include young people with no
criminal records who are frequently hired for a few thousand dollars,
the intelligence officials said.
The senior official said Russia has been forced to rely increasingly on
such amateurs since hundreds of Moscow's spies were expelled from
Western countries following an operation to poison former Russian
intelligence officer Sergey Skripal in the U.K. in 2018. That led to the
death of a British woman — and a major response from the West.
Russia “had to change the modus operandi, from using cadre officers to
using proxies, making a more flexible, deniable system,” the official
said.
Documents shared during the London warehouse trial offered a rare
glimpse into how young men are recruited.
Among those were transcripts of messages between a man prosecutors said
was a Russian intelligence operative and his recruit, Earl, who was
active on Telegram channels associated with the Wagner group — a
mercenary organization whose operations were taken over by Russia’s
Defense Ministry in 2023.
Russian military intelligence — acting through Wagner — was likely
behind the plot, said Kevin Riehle, a lecturer in Intelligence and
National Security at Brunel University in London.
The recruiter — who used the handle Privet Bot — posted multiple times
in a Telegram channel asking for people to join the battle against the
West, Riehle told the court.
Once connected, the recruiter and Earl communicated predominantly in
Russian with Earl using Google to translate, according to screenshots on
his phone. Their messages ranged from the deadly serious to the almost
comic.
The recruiter told Earl, 21, that he was “wise and clever despite being
young,” and suggested he watch the television show “The Americans” —
about Soviet KGB intelligence officers undercover in the U.S.
“It will be your manual,” the recruiter wrote.
In one message, Earl boasted of — unproven — ties to the Irish
Republican Army, to “murderers, kidnappers, soldiers, drug dealers,
fraudsters, car thieves,” promising to be “the best spy you have ever
seen.”
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This undated handout photo provided by the London Metropolitan
Police on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, shows Dylan Earl. (London
Metropolitan Police via AP)
Potential for injuries
Earl and another man eventually recruited others who went to the
warehouse the night of the fire. Earl never met the men, according
to messages shared in court, and it’s unclear whether he ever
visited the site himself.
Once at the warehouse, one of the men poured out a jerrycan of
gasoline before igniting a rag and throwing it on the fuel. Another
recorded the arson on his phone. It was also captured on CCTV.
The warehouse was the site of a mail order company that sent
supplies to Ukraine, including StarLink devices that provide
internet by satellite and are used by the country's military.
Around half the warehouse's contents were destroyed in the fire,
which burned just meters (yards) from Yevhen Harasym, the truck
driver, and a short distance from an outbuilding in the yard of a
home and the apartment block.
More than 60 firefighters responded.
“I started knocking on everyone’s doors screaming and shouting at
the top of my lungs, ‘There’s a fire, there’s a fire, get out!’”
Tessa Ribera Fernandez, who lives in the block with her 2-year-old
son, told the court.
A campaign grows more dangerous
When Russia's disruption campaign started following the Ukraine
invasion, vandalism – including defacing monuments or graffiti — was
more common, said the senior European intelligence official.
“Over the last year, it has developed to arson and assassination,”
the official said.
Other incidents linked to Russia with the potential to cause serious
injury or death include a plot to put explosive devices on cargo
planes – the packages ignited on the ground – and plots to set fire
to shopping centers in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.
Lithuanian prosecutors said a Ukrainian teenager was part of a plan
to plant a bomb in an IKEA store just outside the capital of Vilnius
last year.
It sparked a massive fire in the early hours of the morning. No one
was injured.
More fires and a kidnapping plot
Shortly after the fire in London, Earl and his co-conspirators
discussed what they would do next, according to messages shared with
the court.
They talked about burning down London businesses owned by Evgeny
Chichvarkin — a Russian tycoon who delivered supplies to Ukraine.
Hedonism Wines and the restaurant Hide should be turned to “ashes,”
Earl said.
In the messages, Earl vacillated between saying they didn't “need”
any casualties and that if they “wanted to hurt someone,” they could
put nails in a homemade explosive device. He noted there were homes
above the wine shop.
That reflects a phenomenon the senior intelligence official noted:
Middlemen sometimes suggest ideas — each one a “little better” and
more dangerous.
While Russia’s intelligence services try to keep “strict operational
control” — giving targets, deciding on devices and demanding
recruits record the sabotage — sometimes “control does not hold,”
said Lotta Hakala, a senior analyst at the Finnish Security and
Intelligence Service.
That appears to be what happened in London.
After the fire, the Russian recruiter told Earl he “rushed into
burning these warehouses without my approval.”
Because of that, he said, “it will be impossible to pay for this
arson.”
Still, the recruiter told Earl he wanted to target more businesses
with links to Ukraine.
“You are our dagger in Europe and we will be sharpening you
carefully,” the recruiter wrote. “Then we will start using you in
serious battles.”
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