Inside Russia’s ‘classic psyops’ bid to set Europe on fire: How Putin’s spies orchestrate sabotage attacks from afar by preying on ‘disposable’ online recruits to help wreak havoc in hybrid war

Sabotage attacks, assassinations and psychological operations have long been the hallmarks of intelligence agencies to create chaos and sow insecurity among rivals.

Russia’s embrace of such covert dealings is the stuff of legend. Its infamous ‘illegals’ programme – in which Soviet agents led double lives abroad for decades while spying for the Kremlin – was a masterclass in long-term infiltration and espionage.

But in today’s age of hybrid warfare and ever-more pervasive technology, the methods for conducting these operations have become faster and cruder – and the people responsible for carrying them out more disposable.

Now, in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war and Moscow’s relations with the West at an all-time low, the Kremlin has turned to a new class of operative: the freelancer.

Russian intelligence officers or trusted private intermediaries now operate like gig economy recruiters, trawling Telegram channels, web forums and job boards for individuals willing to smuggle, surveil or sabotage, with no questions asked.

Typically, the freelancers in question are by no means the highly trained spies of Cold War lore. More often than not, they are pawns drawn unwittingly into a grand, sinister game to do the bidding of Russia’s intelligence services.

Many of them are petty criminals, drifters or financially desperate citizens approached under the guise of legitimate jobs as couriers, security contractors or other seemingly innocuous occupations.

Some recruits are unaware they are working for the Russian state, with plausible deniability baked into the system. Others know more, but are paid well enough to turn a blind eye.

In either case, the result is a growing campaign of sabotage, misinformation, and terror stretching from the Baltics to Britain.

Most recently, a bomb plot which saw explosives and incendiary devices hidden in sex toys and cosmetics was foiled before it could threaten a passenger jet or cargo plane.

Meanwhile, in Germany, would-be arsonists targeted US military facilities. In France, a macabre stunt at the Eiffel Tower claimed to mourn ‘French soldiers killed in Ukraine’ to provoke unrest and fear, and opposition journalists across Europe have been marked out for kidnap or assassination.

A man accused of involvement in the DHL parcel bomb plot is pictured being extradited to Poland

A deadly fire ignited at a plant in Berlin containing poisonous sulphuric acid and copper cyanide that is reportedly linked to the manufacture of IRIS-T SL/SLM missiles supplied to Ukraine for use against Russia

Two incendiary devices were shipped via a DHL logistics centre on July 22 to Birmingham, England, and Leipzig, Germany, resulting in a fire

Bulgarian beautician Vanya Gaberova (pictured), decorator Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, and lab technician Katrin Ivanova, 33, were found guilty of conspiring to spy for Russia

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DHL parcel attacks 

In July of last year, packages sitting in depots managed by courier company DHL in Birmingham and the German city of Leipzig suddenly erupted into flames.

At first glance the boxes, originating from Lithuania, contained a host of items that included sex toys, massage pillows and cosmetics. 

Investigators soon uncovered a more troubling layer to the saga when another package, shipped from the same Lithuanian origin point, failed to detonate and was intercepted at a Polish depot.

Inside, forensic specialists discovered a crude yet effective ignition mechanism concealed within the casing of yet another erotic gadget, along with traces of an incendiary gel designed to ignite on contact with air.

Polish security services arrested four people in connection with the blazes and charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency.

Before long it emerged that they were suspected of involvement in a Russian-backed plot to distribute the explosive packages throughout Europe. It is suspected the incidents were test runs for a plot to target US-bound flights. 

One of the alleged couriers was revealed in a recent investigation by the Guardian as Alexander Bezrukavyi, a Russian national with a criminal record and murky ties to Eastern European smuggling networks. 

Bezrukavyi had vanished soon after the parcels were mailed but was eventually captured in Bosnia, where he was on the run and attempting to reach Russia using forged documents.

Massage pillows and other erotic gadgets were reportedly found in a shipment that concealed incendiary devices that later detonated in British and German DHL depots

One of the alleged couriers was revealed in a recent investigation by the Guardian as Alexander Bezrukavyi, a Russian national with a criminal record and murky ties to Eastern European smuggling networks 

Bezrukavyi’s associate Vyacheslav Chabanenko is pictured

Aleksandr Bezrukavyi at his court hearing

Bezrukavyi and his associates are believed to have been recruited via the Telegram messaging app by an account known only as ‘VWarrior’ that was offering hundreds of dollars for seemingly simple courier assignments.

The proposition was simple: purchase a list of items, package them and either deliver them or send them via a courier to another destination in Poland or Lithuania.

One associate of Bezrukavyi said: ‘It could be true that the purpose of the parcels was sinister… We just wanted easy money, work that wouldn’t involve drugs or weapons.

‘It turned out to be some packages to test some f***ed up ****,’ the man, who is still on the run, told the Guardian.

Had the incendiary packages reached their destinations, or worse, been loaded onto aircraft, the consequences could have been catastrophic.

Dr Samuel Ramani, an expert at leading defence and security think tank RUSI, told MailOnline that, had a package caught fire or exploded on a passenger jet to the States, an ‘all-out confrontation’ between Washington and Moscow may have followed.

When asked if people should be fearful of the threat posed by such operations, Dr Ramani said: ‘Yes, people should be very vigilant – they should not take such a threat less seriously than ISIS or any other terror group.

‘They are terrorists in the same way, very serious intent, strategic action, not just a rogue action, criminal for hire, this is a state-sponsored operation.’

Assassination plots and spying on US military bases

In March, three Bulgarian nationals – beautician Vanya Gaberova, 30, decorator Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, and lab technician Katrin Ivanova, 33 – were found guilty of espionage charges by an Old Bailey jury.

None of them underwent extensive training programmes conducted by Russia’s intelligence services, nor did they have any discernible background in the military, politics or technology.

Yet for three years, these individuals passed secrets to Moscow, travelling across Europe to spy on enemies of the state, journalists and a US air base.

The hungry-for-money Bulgarians were contracted by a man named Orlin Roussev, who, along with his right-hand men Biser Dzhambazov and Ivan Stoyanov, planned and oversaw covert operations from a warehouse in Great Yarmouth stacked with all manner of surveillance technology, fake passports and burner phones.

Their activities spanned London, Vienna, Valencia, Montenegro and Stuttgart, their Old Bailey trial heard.

At least £200,000 was sent by the group’s Moscow-based handler, fugitive businessman turned Russian intelligence associate Jan Marsalek, to finance the operations, which were planned over 80,000 messages exchanged with Roussev over Telegram.

It was also revealed that Dzhambazov was sleeping with beautician Gaberova while instructing her to carry out daring operations.

Lab technician Ivanova, who was in a long-term relationship with Dzhambazov, only learnt of their affair after she was arrested.

The ring, which fell apart in February 2023 when British police raided several properties and took the Bulgarians into custody, is one of the most damning examples of the Kremlin’s approach to outsourcing espionage work.

The two women in the group were referred to as the ‘brunette twins’ and were tasked with setting honeytraps for targets including journalist Christo Grozev, whose work uncovering the men behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack made him a target for the Kremlin.

Gaberova was intended to seduce the journalist in a honeytrap plot and sent Grozev a Facebook message, which he accepted.

‘We can definitely record something for Pornhub too, that girl is real hot,’ Roussev wrote to Marsalek in uncovered Telegram messages. ‘She’s a swinger too.’

One member of the group got so close to Grozev that she was able to capture the pin code of his phone while recording with a hidden camera.

Over several months, the crew wrote extensive reports charting Grozev’s movements and recording detailed information about his accommodation, his vehicles and his contacts.

The spymasters plotted to kidnap Grozev to either kill him or excommunicate him to Russia. Thankfully for him, the plan was not followed through.

Dissident journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, editor-in-chief of independent Russian publication ‘The Insider’, was targeted alongside Grozev.

The spies also targeted a UK-based Kremlin critic whom they discussed killing with a poison dart fired from a drone, a Kazakhstani former politician, and a Russian lawyer whom they planned to bring to Moscow ‘dead or alive’ for a fee of £30,000.

Meanwhile, the spies were tasked with information gathering and infiltrating restricted areas.

For several months, the group surveilled a US military base in Stuttgart, believing that the base was being used to train Ukrainian forces in the use of surface-to-air weapons to down Russian fighter jets and drones.

Surveillance images and videos of the base were recovered from the spies’ devices along with descriptions of the security measures in place. A car that was recovered had also been adapted to house and deploy technical surveillance devices outside the base.

Scotland Yard’s Head of Counterterrorism Commander Dominic Murphy said the investigation into the group was the largest he had seen in his two decades in the field.

‘This was spying on an almost industrial scale on behalf of Russia,’ he said at the sentencing of the Bulgarian spy ring.

‘It felt like something you would expect to read in a spy novel. This is not something we see very often.’

Sophisticated technology including rocks containing hidden cameras and a £120,000 device for intercepting mobile phone numbers was found at an address in Great Yarmouth 

Pictured: Fake press cards belonging to Gaberova and Ivanchev that were shown to the jury during the trial

Police camera footage shows Ivanchev being interviewed by police after his arrest

Security footage captured the moment a white van bearing Bulgarian licence plates pulled up near the landmark before two men, dressed head to toe in black, unloaded five full-sized coffins and dumped them on the pavement on Saturday morning

Psy-ops

There have been numerous operations conducted on European soil since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine whose main intention was not to glean information or to eliminate threats, but merely to sow fear and discomfort.

One of the most high-profile examples of such psychological operations, known as ‘psy-ops’, came last summer as Paris prepared to host the Olympic Games.

A shocking stunt saw coffins draped in the French flag and bearing the inscription ‘French soldiers in the Ukraine’ deposited by the Eiffel Tower days before the games began.

Security footage captured the moment a white van bearing Bulgarian licence plates pulled up near the landmark before two men, dressed head to toe in black, unloaded five full-sized coffins and dumped them on the pavement.

All three individuals involved were quickly arrested, with Parisian investigators reportedly discovering material on the phone of one detainee connecting him to another group that defaced a Holocaust memorial in the French capital a month prior, according to Le Monde.

Both acts are thought to have been organised by Russia’s security services, according to France’s Foreign Ministry, but carried out by non-Russian nationals who were freelancers for hire.

One source close to the investigation told Le Parisien the stunt ‘was to denounce France for getting involved in the war in Ukraine’, adding: ‘Russia wants to voluntarily disrupt France through various actions.’

The unsettling stunt came weeks after the French and Ukrainian defence ministries discussed the possibility of Parisian soldiers being sent to train Kyiv’s fighters on Ukrainian soil.

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