For Russia, hybrid war is an ideology and an industry, journalist Hristo Grozev said today to MEPs from the special committee for the protection of European democracy. Grozev participated online in the regular meeting of the parliamentary committee, at which Russian hybrid threats against Europe were discussed, BTA reports.
According to him, Russian hybrid operations can be countered with cooperation between European journalists and security services. This is a war, Europe must recognize it and counter it with the necessary unity, Grozev urged. According to him, the Russian military intelligence GRU, the counterintelligence FSB, the foreign intelligence SVR and Russian oligarchs and state-owned companies participate in these operations and compete for budget, sometimes undertaking uncoordinated campaigns.
In our opinion, the goal of these campaigns is often to create chaos. We discovered a Russian document explaining that creating confusion is perceived as a "victory", and instilling fear is key - by sending false bomb alerts, by creating deep fakes, Grozev explained.
According to him, Russia is responsible for sabotage in Europe and these cases have recently increased significantly. Russia began striking European military targets before 2022, he noted, citing the bombing of weapons depots in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as well as the attempted assassination of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev. Grozev pointed out that last year alone, Polish counterintelligence detained nine perpetrators of attempts to derail trains and cause fires. A Belarusian official set fire to a Polish warehouse on Russian orders and blamed it on Ukrainians, and Finland and Estonia suffered from attacks on pipelines and communications cables, he added.
Many of these operations are carried out by a GRU department with no more than a hundred employees. Thousands of FSB employees, organized crime groups and individual criminals in the occupied Ukrainian regions are already being used. Recruitment is taking place on "Telegram" and up to 10 thousand euros are being offered for a task. Last year, we discovered an FSB employee searching for perpetrators of sabotage during the Olympic Games in France, Grozev said.
According to him, Russia has been conducting cyber operations against Europe continuously since 2007, and in May last year, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland revealed a long-standing GRU campaign to infiltrate political parties and government systems. We have uncovered a new GRU cyberattack and sabotage unit. Until now, their task was to sow discord in Europe. We came across a list of identified targets, which included healthcare facilities, hospital databases, medical device suppliers, water supply networks and transport hubs, he added.
Grozev explained that often the goal is not to collect intelligence, but to create chaos. He continued with examples from last spring, when over 800 cases of jamming of satellite navigation for aviation were identified, which led to the diversion and cancellation of civilian flights.
Russia is actively manipulating the European political landscape, paying for propaganda against Ukraine on the eve of the European Parliament elections in June last year, bribing and buying off European politicians, interfering in the elections in Moldova and Romania, using migration as a weapon, Grozev pointed out. According to him, documents of Afghans who requested asylum in the EU, who had previously lived in Russia for months, were found. To the examples of pressure, he added the suspension of gas supplies through Ukraine since the beginning of this year. Grozev also noted the case against Bulgarian citizens in the UK, accused of acting in favor of Russia.