Russia using criminal networks to drive increase in sabotage acts, says Europol

Proxies deploying tactics including migrant smuggling in destabilisation efforts across EU, enforcement agency finds

Europe live – latest updates

Russia and other state actors are driving an increase in politically motivated cyber-attacks and sabotage of infrastructure and public institutions in the EU, the bloc’s police enforcement agency has found.

Europol’s 80-page serious and organised crime threat assessment for 2025 also describes in detail how “hybrid threat” actors have established a “shadow alliance” with organised criminal gangs in Europe to try to destabilise the functioning of the EU and its member states.

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