According to the Guardian, in his annual report, the Latvian Defense Intelligence and Security (MIDD) advised almost two million inhabitants on how to recognize the possible operatives sent by Russia.
A messy look and “bad personal hygiene” could be a sign that the agent moved into the illegal. Other signs of warnings include excessively inquisitive talks with the local population, a short military hairstyle or tourist who do not know the terrain, but possessing unusually many nature survival equipment – such as specialized medical sets, cards or radio devices.
MIDD, one of the three Latvian security agencies, states that such signs can help citizens discover agents who monitor “critical infrastructure and military facilities” with the purpose of sabotage, planning target murders or causing unrest.
It also states that Russian operatives have improved their skills in recent years, including disguise training, which makes them more difficult to identify them.
“Experience from Ukraine shows that Russian special services can be adapted to the environment and circumstances in which scout-sabotterski groups act,” says Midd. “Their members may not be visually not correspond to the classical profile scout-saboter.”
Agents can be part of groups that are retained near sensitive locations, representing as humanitarian workers or staying in remote areas without interest in nature, adds agencies.
Nevertheless, the Security Service warns citizens not to take independent actions against suspicious Russian agents, emphasizing that the police and the military are most obligured and the most defendant to act in case of doubt.
Latvian public television reported that the state security services were two years ago, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, issued similar – but less detailed – public guidelines for reporting suspicious activities.
As tensions with the West rose, EU and NATO members are in high standby due to possible Russian sabotages, in the middle of the wave cyber attacks, fire and damage to the underwater cables, for which Moscow accuse. Kremlin rejected those accusations.
Yesterday, German federal prosecutors announced that three citizens of Ukraine were arrested under suspicion that they planned attacks in postal bombs in Germany on behalf of the Russian state.
Last July, the European Security Agency disturbed three separate explosions of postal packages sent from Lithuania, which detonated in Birmingham (UK), Leipzig (Germany) and near Warsaw (Poland). Intelligence services suspect that it is a Russian campaign.
The latest case in Germany provoked calls from officials to strengthen the country’s protection against hybrid threats.
Thomas Strobl, Minister of the Interior of the German Federal Province of Baden-Württemberg, where one of the three was arrested, compared the detection of conspiracy with “tectonic earthquake”. “We have to adapt to new threats,” he said. “We’re not in the war, but we’re not even in the right peace.”
(Vijesti.ba)
