Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said Russia has moved from planning to carrying out sabotage operations against Danish companies that supply goods to Ukraine.
Josefine Christensen, a lead analyst at PET, made the remarks on Wednesday at a homeland security conference in Copenhagen. She said the shift marks a clear escalation of Moscow’s hybrid campaign.
“In the spring we saw a lot of planning and very little actually carried out. In early summer they began conducting far more operations,” Christensen said. PET assesses that Russia concluded its earlier, broader attempts to disrupt support for Ukraine had failed to deter NATO from providing military aid to Kyiv.
Moscow, the analyst said, retains political control over the operations, but their operational boldness is growing. Russia, she said, is now “trying to hit targets that have a direct impact on the front line. That means weapons production.”
Christensen also said untrained operatives are increasingly being recruited for these actions, including through Telegram and other social media. Recruitment usually starts with simple tasks such as reconnaissance or photography and can later move on to sabotage itself. “It could be anyone looking for quick money. If the first person doesn’t succeed, they’ll throw another one at the task until it works,” she said.
