Russian fascists ‘sent letter bombs’ to West
Kremlin accused of using white supremacist group to scare European nations leading Ukraine support
RUSSIA ordered white supremacists to post letter bombs to Nato targets in Europe last year, the US believes.
US intelligence officials believe that a group called the Russian Imperial Movement, which has military-style training centres in St Petersburg, wanted to scare Ukraine’s allies.
“Russian officers who directed the campaign appeared intent on keeping European governments off guard and maybe testing out proxy groups in the event that Moscow decides to escalate a conflict,” the New York Times quoted unnamed US intelligence sources as saying.
Letter bombs were sent to targets in Spain, including the official residence of Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister. They were also sent to the Spanish defence minister, an arms manufacturer, an air base, a European satellite centre and the US embassy in Madrid.
Several Ukrainian embassies also either received letter bombs or packages containing sheep’s eyes, animal excrement or were soaked in red wine.
One Ukrainian embassy employee in Madrid suffered minor injuries when a letter bomb exploded in his hands.
The US official said that the letter bombs were intended as a warning to Ukraine’s Western allies.
“The aim of the action was to signal that Russia and its proxies could carry out terrorist strikes across Europe,” the New York Times quoted the official as saying.
The GRU, which co-ordinated the attacks, is considered to be Russia’s most aggressive intelligence agency. It was blamed for the poisoning of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.
President Putin also ordered the GRU to take over from its main rivals, the FSB, after he blamed the failure of his initial invasion of Ukraine on flawed FSB intelligence.
White supremacist movements have become a feature of Russian society over the past 20 years.
Buoyed by the Kremlin’s talk of remaking Russia as a great power, white supremacists and nationalist groups have grown in size, influence and visibility. They are not officially legal but many are tolerated by the authorities and are allowed to hold marches, typically flying old Russian imperial black, yellow and white flags.
The US has labelled the Russian Imperial Movement a terrorist group. It was founded in around 2012 in St Petersburg. It set up military-style training camps and built links with Kremlin mercenary groups, sending units of men to fight in Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when the Kremlin annexed Crimea and supported rebel groups in the eastern Donbas region.
Like most of Russia’s far-right groups, the Russian Imperial Movement had focused its activities on internal affairs but in 2020 it appeared to shift operations overseas, linking up with European supremacist groups, perhaps under the orders of the GRU.
Western intelligence agencies said that one of the leaders of the Russian Imperial Movement, Vladimir Skopinov, was killed in 2020 fighting as a mercenary for Russian groups in Libya.