Filipov did not merely spray a few red splodges on the Jewish memorial. He was on trial with three other Bulgarians for defacing buildings in Paris with as many as 500 hands the colour of blood.
As soon as they had finished their crime in May 2024, the men caught a bus to Belgium and flew home to Bulgaria, making it hard to trace the guilty parties. Their acts looked like evidence of home-grown thuggery and antisemitism.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk (second right) inspects the rail line at Mika that was damaged by sabotage.Credit: AP
More fuel, in other words, for commentators to worry about the fraying of Western society.
But the police were able to track the culprits with the help of video evidence and travel records. Three of the men were extradited to France and put on trial last month; the ringleader, Mircho Angelov, remains at large and was convicted in absentia.
The presiding judge, Nathalie Malet, concluded that they engaged in foreign interference. She called the vandalism a “co-ordinated action from abroad carried out with hostile intent” to stir division in France.
Police say an arson attack on a warehouse in east London in 2024 was masterminded by Russian intelligence.Credit: AP
The four men could not be convicted of being foreign agents, however, because the criminal offence of “acting on behalf of a foreign power” came into effect two months after they picked up their spray paint and filmed themselves in the act.
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This does not mean antisemitism is a foreign plot. Jewish groups in France say the problem is on the rise. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry found a 316 per cent increase in anti-Jewish incidents in its latest annual survey. The point is that foreign interference is so effective at deepening a domestic division, whatever the topic. It finds an open wound and scratches at it.
In Germany, the nation’s Interior Ministry warned in February that the so-called Storm-1516 influence operation was working for Russia by spreading fake videos on social media to try to sway the federal election campaign that month.
Security cameras captured two men carrying out an arson attack in London that authorities say was masterminded by Russian intelligence.Credit: AP
Then, last month, a court convicted a German man of Russian descent of planning an arson attack on military facilities and railways. The man, called Dieter S. in the courts, was jailed for six years. Two accomplices were given suspended jail terms.
“The court found that the accused, Dieter S., but also his accomplices, were aiming to spread fear in the population with the ultimate aim of triggering a political decision to stop supporting Ukraine,” said a court spokesperson.
The latest British case highlighted the damage being done – and the sorry lives of those responsible.
Six men were jailed for setting fire to a London warehouse in March last year and destroying aid destined for Ukraine, causing damage worth £1.3 million ($2.6 million).
Petty criminals Dylan Earl (left) and Jake Reeves were jailed for setting fire to a London warehouse and destroying aid destined for Ukraine.Credit: AP
The ringleader, Dylan Earl, 21, was a part-time drug dealer who lived with his parents and spent a large amount of time playing online games. He admitted his part in the plot, and his barrister argued he was “groomed” online by a chatbot set up by the Wagner Group, the mercenary operation that works for Russia.
Emmanuel Macron stands at the “Mur des Justes” at the Shoah Museum in Paris.Credit: AP
As well as burning down the warehouse, Earl talked to his online contacts about kidnapping Evgeny Chichvarkin, the owner of a wine store and restaurant in London, because he was a critic of Putin. Police said Earl had thousands of messages from Wagner Group accounts – known by names such as ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike’ – on messaging service Telegram.
Earl was jailed for 17 years, and his accomplices are now serving sentences of at least seven years. As with the French case, one of the men filmed the warehouse attack as it was under way.
The judge in the London trial, Bobbie Cheema-Grubb, was clear about the ultimate instigator. “This case is all about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow,” she said.
‘A lot of the time, it’s local idiots that are being recruited for this because they’re disposable agents.’
Keir Giles, Conflict Studies Research Centre and Chatham House consulting fellow
Police in Germany detained a Polish-German citizen on November 11 and accused him of running a site on the dark web that agitated for the murder of prominent politicians.
The prosecutors said the suspect, named as Martin S. without his surname being released, in the usual way with German cases, sought donations online to pay for assassinations. The case is yet to go to court.
In Poland last year, two Russians were arrested for distributing propaganda for the Wagner Group, the mercenaries who help Putin.
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Australians know the pattern. In August, ASIO said Iran was behind two of the worst antisemitic attacks last year: on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney in October, and on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December.
But Iran is not the only threat. Russia is also active in Australia.
“Australia is not immune,” ASIO director-general Mike Burgess told the Lowy Institute in an address on November 5.
“Russian operatives are covertly stoking and amplifying division here, too, although with far less success.
“We recently uncovered links between pro-Russian influencers in Australia and an offshore media organisation that almost certainly receives direction from Russian intelligence.
“Deliberately hiding their connection to Moscow – and the likely instruction from Moscow – the propagandists try to hijack and inflame legitimate debate. They use social media to spread vitriolic, polarising commentary on anti-immigration protests and pro-Palestinian marches.”
The ASIO investigation is described as “ongoing”, and it comes after the Australian Federal Police arrested two Russian-born Australians for espionage offences last year.
This is the new business model for Russian interference and espionage, says Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House in London and a director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre. And it’s on the rise.
“A lot of the time, it’s local idiots that are being recruited for this because they’re disposable agents. You throw a very small amount of money at them, and you don’t care if they get caught,” he says.
One theory, says Giles, is that this is a “deterrence” operation by Putin to discourage support for Ukraine in Western nations. Giles speaks as someone who used to work in Moscow and has written two books about the threat from Russia. But he says deterrence is only one explanation, and there are two other powerful reasons for the Russian operations.
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“The baseline is sowing division in society, sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt. This is something Russia likes to do anyway, even if there isn’t an overriding objective,” he says.
“Also, there’s the specific and targeted attacks where there is a clear and obvious outcome in terms of Russia learning about the capacity of the victim state to respond, and what actually does do damage. This is especially true for the pattern of activity which is targeting logistics networks and, apparently, practising to shut down Europe.”
The street vandalism in Paris, in other words, is linked to the drone attacks on European airports. All these tactics are part of the range of Russian interference.
Europe is learning quickly about the small-time criminals who are helping Putin. Australia will have to be on guard against them as well.
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