532. Russia Plans a Reckless Sabotage Campaign of 'Sustained Mayhem' across Europe Using Criminal Proxies

This is a conversation with the three esteemed authors of a paper entitled “Russian Sabotage in the Gig-Economy Era”, written by Daniela Richterova, Elena Grossfeld, Magda Long and Patrick Bury. I’m delighted to be joined by three of them today. ---------- We are experiencing the most intense era of sabotage since the Second World War in Western countries. Russian operations have now reached unprecedented levels. It seems the main aim is to increase the costs of supporting Ukraine, while at the same time slowing the delivery of military supplies. Russian operations are increasingly organised around ‘gig-economy’ principles. The dangers are mounting from operations that have an element of plausible deniability, that can scale, while causing significant damage and sowing terror. ---------- LINKS: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2024.2401232 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/03071847.2024.2401232?needAccess=true https://news.sky.com/story/mi6-and-cia-warn-of-reckless-campaign-of-sabotage-across-europe-being-waged-by-russia-13210838 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8e15yr1gwo ---------- BIOGRAPHIES: Daniela Richterova is Associate Professor in Intelligence Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She is Director of the MA in Intelligence and International Security and Co-director of the King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence. She is the author of the forthcoming monograph Watching the Jackals: Prague’s Covert Liaisons with Cold War Terrorists and Revolutionaries (Georgetown University Press, January 2025). https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-daniela-richterova https://x.com/drichterova?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-daniela-richterova-219a292b/ https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/daniela.richterova ---------- Elena Grossfeld is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, researching intelligence organisations, their strategic culture and technologies. Her recent publications include ‘Russia’s Declining Satellite Reconnaissance Capabilities and its Implications for Security and International Stability’, an examination of the implications of declining Russia’s space capabilities for the war in Ukraine and global stability. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/elena-grossfeld https://kcsi.uk/members/elena-grossfeld https://x.com/kloosha https://rusi.org/people/grossfeld https://foreignpolicy.com/author/elena-grossfeld/ ---------- Magda Long is Visiting Research Fellow at the King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence at King’s College London. She has two decades of combined work and academic experience in defence and security, intelligence and risk management. Her research examines how states use covert activities to pursue their foreign policy objectives and mitigate national security threats, and as a tool in hybrid warfare. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/magda-long https://kcsi.uk/members/dr-magda-long https://x.com/magda_long?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/magda-long-97b9604/ ---------- Patrick Bury is Reader in Warfare and Counterterrorism at the University of Bath. A UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, he has over 20 years’ experience in the security sector as a practitioner, analyst and scholar. https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/patrick-bury https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-bury-50b43838/ ---------- CHAPTERS: ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ ----------