Perched on the open ramp at the rear of a British Chinook helicopter, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas flew home from the annual Spring Storm military exercises, pleased to see NATO allies cooperating.
That could lead to unintended deaths and injuries, Estonian officials and security experts say, citing a trend of Russia is outsourcing attacks to locals, sometimes recruited relatively cheaply on video gaming platforms and social media.
Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who exposed Russian intelligence involvement in poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal in 2018 in Britain and the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020, was a victim of such outsourcing.
Grozev said nations need to enforce intelligence sharing between their own security services and police and prosecutors and create a “proactive international working task force” to combat foreign influence operations.
Kallas says Russia uses spies in the guise of diplomats “all the time,” and senior Estonian officials support a Czech initiative limiting visas for Russian envoys to the country where they are posted.
Although many Russian intelligence agents already are sanctioned, these could dissuade some “intermediaries” -- local organized crime figures, disillusioned youth and potential spies and collaborators -- from working for Moscow, said Jonatan Vseviov, secretary general of Estonia’s Foreign Ministry.
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