The New York Times analyzes Russia’s new strategy of waging its shadow war in Europe. Ordinary European residents are being recruited to serve as intermediaries between Russian intelligence services and their personal network of petty criminals.
“In April 2024, a Ukrainian woman nearing the end of her thirtieth year of life, whom I will call Anna, received an unexpected call from an old acquaintance, a man named Daniil Gromov. They had met in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, located near the border with Russia. Two years earlier, after Russia had invaded Ukraine, Anna had fled with her family to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Now, Gromov told her he needed a favor: a friend was looking for someone in Vilnius to pick up a package for him. Could Anna help? She agreed and, shortly thereafter, received a call on the Telegram messaging service. A user named Warrior2Alpha told her that the package was stored in a luggage locker at the city’s train station. He sent her a screenshot of a receipt with a code to open the door”, begins the article published in The New York Times.
Inside the locker, Anna found a mix of items gathered in a blue IKEA shopping bag, which she took home and stored in a wardrobe. Three days later, Warrior2Alpha sent her a voice message with a new request. He wanted pictures of the contents of the bag. Anna opened the bag and took out a remote-controlled car, still in its box. On one side was a bubble-wrapped envelope, containing a bunch of wires. She also found several mobile phones, charging cables, and a pair of black vibrators. Anna took a photo and sent it to Warrior, as she had come to call him, who told her to take the IKEA bag to another luggage locker at the station.
By then, Anna had become increasingly uneasy about the situation she had gotten herself into. Warrior’s profile on Telegram included images of a gun and ammunition cartridges, something that looked like a rocket, and a Russian flag. Anna feared that by helping him, she was somehow supporting Russia’s war effort. She contacted her sister, who had a friend working in law enforcement in Ukraine. He advised Anna to delete the photo she had sent to Warrior and promised to alert the relevant authorities in Lithuania.
“What had begun as a strange favor out of the blue had now become an undercover operation”
Within a few days, officers from the Lithuanian anti-terrorist police appeared at Anna’s apartment. Investigators soon established that the devices in the IKEA bag were detonators, capable of triggering an explosion or a fire. They gave Anna a new set of instructions: she was to continue corresponding with Warrior, but under surveillance, with the contents of the bag replaced with fake objects and a hidden GPS device. What had begun as a strange favor out of the blue had now become an undercover operation.
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