Overview
- Financial Times reporting, citing Western officials, says former Wagner propagandists have been reactivated and are operating with or alongside Russian intelligence services.
- Recruiters allegedly use social media, troll‑farm tactics and encrypted apps such as Telegram to find disposable operatives kept at two levels of separation from Russian handlers.
- The campaign is assessed as aiming to weaken support for Ukraine and to showcase Russian reach behind NATO lines through deniable, low‑cost actions.
- UK counterintelligence reporting describes a 2023 case in which Dylan Earl was recruited via Telegram, involved four others to torch an East London warehouse linked to a Ukrainian company, and was paid about £9,000.
- European expulsions of Russian diplomats are said to have pushed Moscow toward using local proxy saboteurs, while heightened scrutiny across Europe may be curbing the scheme’s effectiveness.