Western intelligence tells The Telegraph that Russia is stepping up covert sabotage against European defence plants supplying Ukraine.
Moscow now recruits local criminals online and pays in cryptocurrency, staying below NATO's Article 5 line while keeping deniability. Recent
Assessment
Russia is outsourcing sabotage to local criminals recruited online, with cryptocurrency payments that obscure attribution. The strategy deliberately stays under NATO's Article 5 threshold, letting Moscow disrupt European arms production for Ukraine without open conflict. The key risk is that deniable attacks accumulate faster than governments can prove state involvement. Watch for whether European defence plants harden security and whether any attack crosses the line into open retaliation.