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Russia Uses Mafia-Style Networks for Sabotage and Violence Across Europe, Spiegel Reports
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Russia is increasingly using organized criminal networks to carry out sabotage and assassination operations in Europe, according to an unpublished German Interior Ministry response to a parliamentary inquiry cited by Spiegel on May 11.
German officials identified Russian-Eurasian Organized Crime networks, known in German policing as REOK, as a key area of concern. The ministry assessed that these networks can be used for sabotage, intimidation, and targeted attacks, while providing Moscow with a layer of plausible deniability.
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According to the report, the arrangement is mutually useful: Russian authorities tolerate or protect certain criminal groups, while those groups can be called on to support state-directed operations abroad.
The shift comes as European countries have expelled large numbers of Russian diplomats and suspected intelligence officers since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, limiting Russia’s traditional espionage infrastructure and increasing its reliance on proxies.
German officials and security experts have linked the pattern to several suspected Russian operations in Europe, including the 2019 Tiergarten killing in Berlin.
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Green Party lawmaker Marcel Emmerich warned that Russia and authoritarian actors are increasingly using “mafia-style” networks to extend political influence and carry out hostile activity inside Europe.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CPD) stated that the findings match Kyiv’s assessment that Moscow has shifted toward recruiting disposable proxies for sabotage, arson, intimidation, and other hybrid operations.
According to the CPD, Russia increasingly relies on one-time operatives recruited through Telegram, social media, and criminal channels.
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Such recruits may have no formal link to Russian intelligence services, making operations harder to attribute directly to the Kremlin.
Publicly known examples include the 2019 contract killing of a Georgian exile in Berlin's Tiergarten park and an incendiary device planted in a DHL parcel at the Leipzig cargo airport in 2024.
The Ukrainian agency added that European security services and governments increasingly view Russia not as a source of isolated incidents but as a state systematically conducting hybrid warfare.
It noted that similar recruitment activity is also targeting executors inside Ukraine, where the agency has prepared joint guidance with the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to help citizens avoid becoming targets.
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