Rozina Sabur, National Security Editor
14 January 2026 6:00am GMT
Russia is training a pro-Kremlin “youth army” in sabotage operations to bolster its hybrid war with Europe as it ramps up attacks on the West. Hybrid warfare – a blend of sabotage operations, cyber hacks, and spreading misinformation – has become a hallmark of Moscow’s escalating hostility. While many attacks have been carried out by proxies, it has now emerged that Moscow is also simultaneously recruiting and training “millions of young people” on how to conduct sabotage operations “as part of preparation for conflict with Nato”. The activity is described in a report by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), due to be published on Wednesday. According to the report, Russia’s young recruits are being trained by pro-Kremlin groups, including Yunarmiya, the government’s youth military organisation.
Taken with participation in smaller, more elite, state-directed groups, the analysis estimated that somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of young Russians may be engaged in some form of organised, state-sponsored activity. One participant in the report’s research told analysts that in training, sabotage was framed to young people “as part of preparation for conflict with Nato”. “This scale of mobilisation raises concerns over the future availability of dramatically more willing and less risk-averse executors,” the report’s authors noted. Europe and Britain have seen a sharp rise in Russian-linked hostile activity since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In November, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister described an explosion on the Warsaw-Lublin railway line, a key route for transporting aid to Ukraine, as “an unprecedented act of sabotage” which officials publicly attributed to Russian intelligence.
In 2024, Russian proxies were linked to an arson attack on a warehouse in Leytonstone, east London which was storing satellite communication devices for Ukraine, and a plot to firebomb a Mayfair restaurant. The same year, a European bomb plot involving explosives in parcels placed on planes led to fires in Britain, Germany and Poland. According to Rusi’s analysis, the number of sabotage attacks by Russian intelligence agencies on Nato-member states tripled in 2024, the last year for which there is complete data. “Not only is the frequency rising, but the scale of potential attacks is also increasing,” said Tom Keatinge, the report’s co-author, highlighting November’s bomb attacks on Polish railway lines. Mr Keatinge said part of the problem was intelligence agencies’ “failure to prioritise” the threat, including by detecting and tracing the financing of attacks.
The Kremlin has increasingly relied on proxies to carry out these attacks following Europe and the UK’s mass expulsion of Russian agents in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. The report notes the approach is a shift from the Cold War-era reliance on trained intelligence operatives to the “gig-economy era” of relying on freelancers. Moscow has taken to recruiting disposable proxies online, often Ukrainian nationals who are unaware of the true nature of their paymasters, as part of an effort to erode public support for Kyiv. Others, including in Britain, have been recruited on gaming platforms or the messaging service Telegram on the promise of lucrative rewards. Mr Keatinge notes the use of disposable proxies can be a double-edged sword, since, while more easily deniable, “Russia has limited control” over the execution of its assignments. Blaise Metreweli, the new head of MI6, used her first address to sound the alarm over Russian hybrid operations.
In her first address since taking over the agency, Ms Metreweli warned last month: “Russia is testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war.” She explicitly referenced cyber-attacks on critical national infrastructure, drones crippling airports, “aggressive activity” in British waters, state-sponsored arson, and propaganda operations that “exploit fractures within societies”. Sir Ken McCallum, her MI5 counterpart, has said Russia is attempting to recruit Britons to carry out attacks, but warned those considering the offers that the Kremlin views its proxies as “disposable”.
