Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) warned that Russia may stage sabotage in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, and blame Ukraine for the attacks, in a Telegram post on 23 October.
The warning comes three days after The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence traces Europe’s sabotage wave to Putin’s personal order. If Russia stages new attacks and pins them on Ukraine, as HUR warns, European anger could turn on Kyiv rather than the Kremlin. This goes further than HUR’s statement on 2 October, which named potential Russian targets in Europe but did not mention a plan to blame Ukraine for attacks.
Russia is stepping up its hybrid strategy to destabilize the European Union, according to HUR. The agency identified two aims: reducing foreign support for Ukraine by discrediting its Defense Forces, and intimidating European governments and societies.
The accusations would be spread through Russian propaganda channels and international platforms accessible to the Kremlin.
HUR listed several potential targets for Russian provocations:
The list reflects HUR’s assessment of potential targets, not confirmation that attacks at these locations are planned.
On 2 October, HUR said Russian intelligence services had been ordered to increase activity in EU and NATO countries. It named military facilities, critical infrastructure, communications systems, and Starlink ground stations as potential targets and said it had alerted partners.
Warnings of Russian false flags on NATO’s eastern flank predate HUR’s. In August, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed European intelligence official, that Russia might expand hybrid attacks against Poland and the Baltic states, including false-flag attacks. A European government official separately told the agency that the CIA had warned countries in the region of a possible Russian attack. Lithuania’s military intelligence had warned earlier in August that Moscow might reassemble captured Ukrainian drones for false-flag strikes on critical infrastructure in the Baltic region.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported on 20 October that US intelligence agencies believe the attempted drone attack on Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany in early August was among the opening shots of a sabotage campaign ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Journal cited European officials briefed on the intelligence findings.
According to the newspaper, at least three drones carrying military-grade Semtex explosives were involved. One struck an Antonov cargo plane used to transport military aid to Ukraine but failed to explode. Another collided with a different aircraft, while a third detonated near the airport perimeter. German newspaper Welt am Sonntag has since named two suspects, citing German investigation files. Earlier German media reports described the sequence differently.
The Journal also reported sabotage attacks on Starlink stations in Poland, Lithuania, and Bulgaria in recent weeks. In August, Slovak authorities said they had foiled a planned arson attack on a Ukrainian drone factory, the Journal reported.
Russia denies involvement in sabotage in Europe. Responding to Berlin’s accusations over the Leipzig incident in early September, Putin asked where the evidence was.
Fighters of the Bratstvo Battalion, part of the Timur Special Unit of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), captured three Russian servicemen and gave first aid to one of them, HUR reported on 19 October. They also found and destroyed Russian sabotage groups, HUR said, adding that counter-sabotage operations in the Zaporizhzhia direction are ongoing.
Russian forces have spent months trying to get closer to Zaporizhzhia, one of Ukraine’s largest cities. They may try to use the dried-up bed of the Kakhovka Reservoir to infiltrate north toward it as autumn fog and dense vegetation set in, the Institute for the Study of War reported on 26 September. Ukrainian troops are now clearing the area of Russian saboteurs trying to get into the rear of Ukrainian positions, according to HUR.
HUR’s video shows the fighting and the captures, with one dead Russian soldier blurred. At the end, a captured Russian says two of the three men in his group were killed by a “Baba Yaga,” the nickname Russian troops use for Ukraine’s heavy bomber drones.
HUR described what the Russian groups are trying to do:
“Using small sabotage groups, the enemy is attempting to penetrate deep into the rear positions of Ukraine’s Defense Forces, build up forces to destabilize the situation, disrupt logistics, and neutralize Ukrainian defenders’ combat crews.”
Russia’s objective in the Zaporizhzhia direction is to advance within artillery range of the city, hold forward positions, and protect its rear from Ukrainian strikes, the Institute for the Study of War noted.
In January, Russian forces were trying to capture Stepnohirsk and advance along the shore of the former Kakhovka Reservoir toward Zaporizhzhia. Taking the settlement would let Russian troops place long-range artillery or fiber-optic drones there to strike the city’s outskirts, Southern Defense Forces spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn told Ukrinform on 14 January.
On 22 September, Anastasiia Shevchenko, spokesperson for the Southern Forces Group, said there were no signs of preparations for a direct offensive on Zaporizhzhia and that Russian forces lacked the troops and means to advance directly toward the city.
The Kakhovka Reservoir was a vast artificial body of water on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine that supplied water to millions of people, as well as to agriculture and industry. On 6 June 2023, Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, the Southern Operational Command reported.
After the dam was destroyed, the bed of the former reservoir quickly became overgrown with willows, poplars, and shrubs, creating a new battlefield. Ukrainian troops have fought there before.
In November 2025, fighters from the same Bratstvo unit carried out a reconnaissance and sabotage operation 7 kilometers from the shoreline of the former reservoir, HUR said. They found and eliminated Russian troops, then raised the Ukrainian flag over the islands there and took control of the area.
In April, the Bratstvo unit’s chief of staff, who goes by the call sign “Dyviziia,” described the conditions on an earlier raid across the reservoir bed:
“You’re just constantly moving through these thickets, with no way to figure out which direction to go. You can literally see everything just two meters ahead of you.”
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