Why sabotage tactics by militant groups are on the rise across Europe

From the very real attack on the Nord Stream pipeline, to the success of the film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, based on Andreas Malm’s case for doing just that, sabotage as a tactic for achieving political goals is becoming more popular across Europe for both state actors and activist groups. Yesterday the railway network in France was subjected to a series of arson attacks, in an unclaimed sabotage effort which disrupted travel to the Olympics.

Nobody has yet claimed responsibility but French authorities are looking into whether the co-ordinated arson campaign was the work of French far-left and environmental groups, which have previously deployed sabotage. Others have suggested that foreign terrorists could target the Games. Experts have warned of the potential risks from the Kremlin, following the arrest of an alleged Russian spy earlier this week.

Two security sources told Reuters that the mode of attack meant initial suspicions fell on leftist militants or environmental activists, but said they did not yet have any evidence.

Across Europe, there has been a rise in acts of sabotage by leftist and environmental groups. In Germany the far-left militant Vulkan Gruppe (Volcano Group) collective has repeatedly attacked a Tesla gigafactory outside Berlin, claiming responsibility for an arson attack on a power pylon there in March.

Thomas Dekeyser, researcher of radical groups and director of the documentary Machines in Flames told i: “The first attack that they claimed was in 2018 when they knew there was a node of several different cables including fibre-optic cables for the network in Berlin. They set that on fire and took down part of the internet in Berlin for a few hours.”

Dr Dekeyser said the ideology of the group was “green anarchist” and that they believed green capitalism was a lie. “They wrote in their communiques that ‘Tesla is neither green, ecological nor social.’ They are anti-capitalists who regard green capitalism as another form of colonialism […] exploiting minerals from the global south,” he said.

Dr Dekeyser has investigated the CLODO anti-technology sabotage group in the south of France that operated in the 1980s. He said that the traditions of groups like CLODO or Action Directe, another far-left militant group in France; the Marxist–Leninist Red Brigades in Italy; and the communist Baader Meinhof gang in Germany meant that radical direct action and sabotage “are much more thinkable” for activists in these countries.

Environmental sabotage is an increasingly common form of sabotage in Europe. Victor Cachard, author of A History of Sabotage told i that “there has been an increase in acts of [environmentally motivated] sabotage”.

Climate activists have stepped up sabotage attacks over what they see as a lack of action in response to climate marches and petitions, Mr Cachard said. In France the Earth Uprising, a radical environmental movement, has frequently used sabotage tactics against factories that produce concrete and against megabasins, man-made reservoirs which they say drain the water table.

Mr Cachard said that the group was made up of “people disappointed with the failure of climate marches, petitions, non-violent actions and total pacifism. In sabotage they have found a tactic that is more effective and beyond upsetting public opinion, is not very problematic – it doesn’t hurt human beings”.

He added: “We are in an increasingly ‘hot’ moment in terms of climate breakdown and escalating geopolitical conflict, whether that’s Israel-Palestine or the war in Ukraine, in which the methods of war change. Russia has sabotaged trains carrying arms for example.”

Some security consultants in France have attributed the attacks on the rail network to Russia. However other, including Mr Cachard, cautioned against “immediately viewing saboteurs as traitors in league with a foreign power”. He added that saboteurs were often “pursuing their own goals”.

Arson attacks across Europe have been attributed to Russia by various governments and security agencies, with targets ranging from arms depots, to shopping centres to railway lines. In April two British men were charged with starting a fire at a UK warehouse containing aid for Ukraine. They are accused of working on behalf of the Russian government.

Dr Jenny Mathers, a specialist on Russian intelligence strategy told i: “This part of a pattern of Russian covert operations that goes back a long time to the Soviet Union even. What they have historically been very good at is embedding agents in Western societies and then activating them, or putting pressure on citizens abroad is what we have seen more recently in post-Soviet Russia”.

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Dr Mathers said that Russia had spent “a lot of time and energy and money on their security and intelligence apparatus because this is a way that they can put their finger on the scale and make things more favourable to Moscow.

“It’s a long-term strategy and we are almost seeing it be deployed more and more in relation to the war in Ukraine because it is a way of putting pressure on Ukraine’s international supporters. We tend not to see this type of action in countries where the leadership is more sympathetic to Russia.”

She added: “It’s a way of casting doubt in the minds of society on the legitimacy and competence of government and keeping those governments off balance.” Dr Mathers pointed out that Russian sabotage attacks were often “opportunistic” and there was no clear pattern in the way that there might be with the Kremlin’s targeted assassinations of figures such as the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko with polonium in 2006, and attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal with novichok in 2018.

Russia itself is not immune from sabotage. In 2023, the conflict journalism outlet Popular Front interviewed members of anti-Putin Russian partisan groups who had committed sabotage attacks on trains in Russia to sabotage the country’s war effort.