“We know where you live.” While the Kremlin strongly denies claims of Russian involvement, MI5 suspects Moscow is behind several arson attacks at properties connected to U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Three men, two Ukrainian nationals and a Romanian born in Ukraine, have been arrested by Scotland Yard and charged in connection to the attacks.
Those charges include “conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.” Oddly, two of the men are aspiring models or actors.
The incidents are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command because of the connection with a high-profile public figure. (RELATED: World Leader Targeted? Explosive Accusation Rocks Europe)
These attacks appear to be an escalation of the ongoing sabotage campaign Russia has been waging against U.S., U.K., and other Western targets in Europe in retaliation for Western support for Ukraine.
They are also very personal and appear to be intended to send a message to Starmer and other European leaders: “We know where you live.”
The BBC reported:
On 8 May, a car the prime minister had sold to a neighbor caught fire on the Kentish Town street where he lived before moving to Downing Street.
Three days later, firefighters dealt with a small fire at the front door of an Islington house, where Sir Keir lived during the 1990s and which has since been converted into flats.
On 12 May, the fire brigade and police were called to a fire at the prime minister’s private home on the same street as where the car fire took place.
Sir Keir previously described the incidents as “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for.”
In March many initially suspected a fire at an electrical substation that shut down Heathrow airport was caused by Russian agents, though eventually authorities claimed the incident was not suspicious.
Whether that fire was an attack or not, the broader sabotage campaign has created an environment where Russia’s adversaries feel uncomfortable and anxious and slightly paranoid.
There’s an old saying: “I might be paranoid, but it doesn’t mean that someone’s not out to get me.”
Still, intelligence experts point to patterns of sabotage by Russia that is part of a broader strategy of hybrid warfare against the West. (RELATED: Trump’s Defense Strategy Leaves Foreign Rival On Edge)
NBC News reported:
The number of Russian sabotage attacks, many of them carried out in European NATO countries, nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling between 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the [Washington, DC-based] Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS] think tank.
Transportation and critical infrastructure, the CSIS report said, are some of its primary targets, and its main weapons and tactics have included explosives, blunt or edged instruments, and electronic attacks.
The London-based think tank, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), noted that a former defense and intelligence advisor for Ukraine said sabotage was getting a higher priority in Russia, with Western intelligence reporting that a new unit, the 236th Specialist Training Center, had been created to “seriously scale up sabotage operations.”
NBC News added:
Last year, Western security officials said Russia was behind a plot to plant bombs on cargo planes in Germany and the U.K. as part of a wider sabotage campaign to start fires aboard aircraft bound for North America.
According to NATO, Russia was behind a plot to kill the head of a German arms manufacturer supplying weapons to Ukraine, while European authorities are also investigating damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, with Finnish officials detaining a ship suspected of being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
All this nefarious Russian activity prompted Richard Moore, head of MI6, to earlier describe Moscow’s actions as a “staggeringly reckless campaign” intended to “sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine” and challenge Western resolve.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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About time for NATO to push back. Start by pushing Belorussian to eject the Russians, under threat of heavy sanctions. Then Katarinaburg. Just start massing troops. Putin has all his forces in the Ukraine. What he has left is not a credible threat! Sure, Putin will threaten to use nukes, but he always does that.
Seeds for WW3