cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11096364

The fact that Denmark’s intelligence service PET has seen concrete sabotage plans against Denmark is not, in itself, surprising, but it does show that hybrid war has reached a new level.

That is what Flemming Splidsboel, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies specializing in Russia and Ukraine, tells Politiken:

“I’m not surprised. Of course, I didn’t know it would happen right now, but this is something we’ve been talking about, and I have personally warned that it would happen. There have also been several cases of people being recruited from various groups to carry out these kinds of acts. Because if you don’t have agents on the ground, then you have to get them somehow,” Splidsboel says.

On Wednesday evening, the Dansih newspaper Berlingske published an interview with PET in which Emil Græsholm, head of counterespionage at PET, said that the service had seen concrete examples of sabotage plans against Denmark.

“We have seen preparation and planning, and our task is to detect and counter it at an early stage and not wait until something is already burning. But this is concrete planning to such a degree that we are concerned,” he told Berlingske, among other things.

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That is why Europe is now forced to respond, Flemming Splidsboel says:

“Europe has to come up with a response. The Germans also have to follow up on their statements, because closing a consulate does not hurt the Russians. It is possible that the EU will come up with a joint response, perhaps in the form of speeding up the new sanctions package that is on the way. Because the threat has now become more acute.”

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