Summary
Three Western intelligence officials from different countries told Associated Press that a Russia-directed campaign of targeted killings in Europe has ramped up since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with explicit “political authorization” from the Kremlin. The campaign is structurally novel: in the post-Skripal (2018) environment of mass-expulsion of Russian diplomatic-cover officers, Moscow has shifted to recruiting cheap proxies — including criminals, defectors-turned-coerced, and Russian organized-crime figures — for assassination plots, in parallel with 191 documented acts of sabotage and arson mapped by AP across Europe since 2022. Targets now include not only military defectors but Russian dissidents abroad and foreign supporters of Ukraine — a category-shift from prior practice. Three identified targets (Vladimir Osechkin in France; Ruslan Gabbasov and Valdas Bartkevičius in Lithuania) gave on-record interviews; Lithuanian prosecutors have charged 13 people from at least 7 countries; at least 20 people have been detained, charged, or identified across Europe in the past year.
Key Points
- Three Western intelligence sources (different countries, all anonymous) characterize a “campaign… not by accident or chance. There is political authorization.”
- AP-mapped scope: 191 acts of sabotage, arson, and disruption linked to Russia across Europe since the start of the war
- Doctrinal shift post-Skripal (2018): after Britain + Western nations expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats/spies, Moscow moved to proxy-recruitment model — cheap criminals, ex-defectors, organized crime
- Targeting category-shift: now includes Russian rights activists abroad and foreign Ukraine-supporters — not just defectors
- Documented plots/cases (2024–2025):
- France: 4-man Russian crew (all from Dagestan) staked out Vladimir Osechkin’s Biarritz home April 2025 with view to assassinate
- Lithuania: plot against Ukrainian-supporter Bartkevičius (mailbox bomb, March 2025); plot against Bashkortostan activist Ruslan Gabbasov (Apple AirTag tracker, killer-with-gun detained near home February 2025)
- Germany: plot against head of Rheinmetall (German weapons company supplying Ukraine); plot against Ukrainian military official
- Poland: 2024 arrest, plot to assassinate Zelenskyy
- Spain: 2024 killing of Russian helicopter pilot defector Maxim Kuzminov (Russian operatives prime suspects)
- Lithuanian prosecutors: 13 charged from ≥7 countries; some directly ordered by Russian military intelligence (GRU)
- Connection to broader hybrid campaign: proxies in killings overlap with proxies in arson, espionage
- State-TV element: Russian state TV pre-televised threats against Kuzminov before his Spain assassination
- Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined comment (“don’t see any need”)
- Cmdr. Dominic Murphy (retired, head of UK Met Police counterterror) traces doctrinal shift to UK/Western response to Skripal
Newsletter Angles
- State assassination as procurement problem: The substantive insight is doctrinal, not gory. Russia’s intelligence services have been forced into a procurement model — outsourcing capability to criminals because Western diplomatic-cover networks were expelled. The plots fail more often (Murphy’s read), but the model itself is now durable. This is the same outsourcing-by-state-pressure dynamic that produced the Wagner Group and the IRGC tollbooth in Hormuz: when sanctions/expulsions eliminate state-direct capacity, states adopt proxy-and-platform models that look less like conventional state action and more like organized-crime infrastructure with state authorization. Worth a piece on “State capacity through proxies” as a structural pattern: Wagner mercenaries, Hormuz IRGC tolls, European assassination crews, hybrid-warfare arsonists.
- Targeting category-shift: The move from “killing defectors” (a reciprocity-respecting norm) to “killing rights activists and foreign Ukraine supporters” (a category that has no historic protection) is the real news. The wiki has Authoritarian Drift and Institutional Capture but no concept page for transnational repression specifically — and this source establishes a clear data point.
- Cross-link to the Cole Tomas Allen WHCD attacker: The DHS Critical Incident Note already on the wiki posits Iran-conflict motive for an act of political violence on U.S. soil. The AP piece now establishes the parallel: state authorization for political violence on European soil, channeled through proxies. Different states, different proxies, same structural form. The Strait conflict, the European assassination campaign, and the WHCD attack live in the same family of stories about state-authorized violence using non-state/proxy actors.
- Russia / Hormuz / Pakistan link: Pakistan re-flagging Iranian-stranded ships (Hormuz cluster); Pakistan border-trade with Iran; Russia’s Bashkortostan-targeting Gabbasov for political activity. The single thread is that contested-loyalty diasporas living in Europe become assassination targets because their political work touches multiple state interests at once.
Entities Mentioned
- Vladimir Putin (deferred entity) — campaign authorizer per AP sources
- Vladimir Osechkin — Russian rights activist; under French police protection since 2022; founder of prison-rights group; investigates Russian abuses in Ukraine; helps military defectors flee (deferred entity)
- Ruslan Gabbasov — Bashkortostan independence activist; Lithuania-based; AirTag-tracked; declined witness protection (deferred entity)
- Valdas Bartkevičius — Lithuanian Ukraine-supporter; mailbox-bomb plot survivor (deferred entity)
- Maxim Kuzminov — Russian helicopter pilot defector; killed in Spain 2024
- Sergei Skripal — 2018 Salisbury nerve-agent attack; doctrinal pivot point
- Dmitry Peskov — Putin spokesperson; declined comment
- Cmdr. Dominic Murphy — retired head of UK Met Police counterterror; traced doctrinal shift
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy (deferred entity) — Polish-arrested 2024 assassination plot target
- GRU / Russian Military Intelligence (deferred entity) — Lithuanian prosecutors traced direct orders to it
Concepts Mentioned
- Russia Targeted Killings Campaign (new concept, this batch) — category-shift to dissidents + Ukraine-supporters; proxy model; 191 sabotage/arson acts mapped
- Hybrid Warfare (deferred concept) — sabotage/arson/espionage parallel theater
- Transnational Repression (deferred concept) — supranational form of which this is the kinetic apex
- Authoritarian Drift — Russia case is the doctrinal upper bound of where the U.S. is not (yet)
- Institutional Capture — adjacent; but this is operational, not institutional
Quotes
“This campaign is not by accident or chance. There is political authorization.” — Senior European intelligence official
“Even if you thwart an operation once, you still need to be ready in case they strike again.” — same official, on long-term posture
“What difference does it make to them? They could kill me… or I could hide from everyone and stop engaging in political activity. That’s exactly what they want.” — Ruslan Gabbasov
Notes
AP wire reporting, three anonymous Western intelligence sources from different countries — high-tier sourcing, tightly attributed. The 191-incidents number comes from AP’s own ongoing project mapping Russian-linked sabotage in Europe; treat as primary AP claim, not as official intelligence-community number. The on-record victim interviews (Osechkin, Gabbasov, Bartkevičius) are the article’s primary contribution beyond the doctrinal-shift framing. The retired British counterterror commander (Murphy) provides the only named-source doctrinal interpretation. No comparable AP-quality reporting yet exists for whether the U.S. is downstream-targeted by the same campaign — open question for follow-up.