In an attempt to escalate the hybrid war, Russian spies are buying up cottages, cottages, warehouses, apartments, abandoned buildings and even entire islands with the intention of using them as springboards for sabotage and “coordinated” surveillance of military and strategic objects. According to The Telegraph, active and former officers of three Western intelligence services are concerned that the Russians already have explosives, drones and weapons for agents ready for deployment in some places.
Western intelligence officials say that instead of a conventional military strike, the Kremlin could try to test NATO’s resolve and unity with larger attacks that would cripple transport, communications and energy networks while complicating any exercise of the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense clause.
“Russia is testing us in the gray zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war,” said Blaise Metreweli, head of the British secret service MI6, according to the paper.
Moscow is suspected of using spy ships and “shadow fleet” vessels to deploy sensors and devices for remote detonation of explosives near submarine cables not only in British waters, but also in the Baltic and North Seas.
“Threats are significantly increased by the fact that Russian citizens still have the opportunity to invest in strategic real estate without obstacles,” said one of the members of Western intelligence on condition of anonymity.
Properties with a view
For example, Britain checked all suspicious acquisitions of real estate near the MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall in central London or the American embassy in Nine Elms. Sales of houses overlooking the submarine base at Faslan in western Scotland or the anchoring sites for submarine cables in the Shetland Islands are also being pursued. There are also fears that the Russians will try to buy houses around the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
European countries are now being advised by the secret services to follow the example of Finland, which last July introduced an almost complete ban on the purchase of real estate for Russians and Belarusians, which caused a chain reaction in the Baltic states, which adopted similar legislation. However, the rest of the NATO member states did not go that far, according to The Telegraph, and so, according to Western intelligence services, Russia began converting hundreds, perhaps thousands of otherwise inconspicuous buildings across Europe into listening posts, safe havens for its agents and potential weapons depots.
