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Russia Using Cryptocurrency to Fund Sabotage Operations Across EU, Says Polish Security Chief
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Russia has been using cryptocurrencies to pay saboteurs involved in hybrid operations across the European Union in an effort to conceal financial trails from intelligence agencies, according to Poland’s national security bureau chief, Sławomir Cenckiewicz.
Speaking to the Financial Times on October 13, Cenckiewicz said Moscow was likely relying on digital currencies to finance a series of recent attacks ranging from drone incursions to sabotage and cyber operations targeting critical infrastructure, including water systems. He added that intelligence shared with Western partners indicated Russia’s so-called shadow fleet was being used to launch drones into European airspace.
According to Financial Times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously accused Moscow of using its shadow fleet in the Baltic Sea to launch drone attacks on European nations. Cenckiewicz confirmed that evidence of such operations had been shared among the intelligence services of Poland, Denmark, Germany, and Norway.
“They confirm that the shadow fleet of often very old Russian oil tankers that used to smuggle oil is being used by Russia for [drone] reconnaissance,” he said.
According to Cenckiewicz, a spy network run by Russia’s GRU military intelligence and uncovered in Poland in 2023 was “to a high extent financed with cryptocurrency”—a method Warsaw believes the Kremlin continues to employ.
In response, Poland’s parliament recently passed legislation tightening oversight of the crypto asset market, introducing prison terms for violations. Cenckiewicz said the measure was also intended to disrupt Russian funding networks.
“The Polish intelligence services are very much interested in this whole legislative process, to ensure there are no gaps that would allow foreign powers to use [crypto] to finance their agents,” he said.
The Kremlin has increasingly turned to digital currencies and blockchain networks to evade Western sanctions and sustain financial operations after being cut off from the SWIFT payment system following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Financial Times reported.
Earlier, North Korea-linked hackers stole over $2 billion in cryptocurrency since the beginning of the year, setting a new record for the largest annual total ever reported.
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