Finland Warns Russian Sabotage Campaign Against Defense Industry Has Escalated Since Summer

Finland's top counterintelligence official says Russian sabotage activity aimed at the country's defense industry and its logistics chains supporting Ukraine has increased since the summer of 2026, after a quieter 2025.

Teemu Liikkanen, head of counterintelligence at Finland's Security and Intelligence Service, known as Supo, told public broadcaster Yle on Monday, September 28, that there's no indication of an imminent attack. But he said Finland can't assume it's safe.

"There is no reason to panic or become fearful. We should not go down that road. But we need to be prepared and ready," Liikkanen said.

A separate Supo special investigator, Lotta Hakala, told the Finnish news agency STT that Russian sabotage activity has "clearly become more active since the summer," and that Moscow's interest in disrupting Ukraine aid has shown up in a string of recent attacks, according to reporting aggregated by Ground News.

The Poland Connection

The warnings follow an arson attack five days earlier at a Starlink satellite ground station in Wola Krobowska, a village south of Warsaw. The station, operated by Polish state telecom Exatel, relayed internet connectivity for Central and Eastern Europe, including for Ukraine's military, according to Tech Times.

Polish prosecutors confirmed arson as the cause of the fire and said they have reasonable grounds to suspect Russian intelligence ordered it, Tech Times reported.

Tech Times also reported that more than 20 million job advertisements concealing offers to commit arson and sabotage spread across Telegram in the first half of 2026, targeting defense workers, NATO vehicles, and communications infrastructure in at least 20 countries. The report ties the campaign to Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, and notes an April 2026 advisory that found the GRU had been compromising Finnish home and office routers to build covert access networks inside the country.

Finland's Exposure

Finland joined NATO in April 2023, ending more than seven decades of military non-alignment, and shares an 833-mile border with Russia. Since joining, Supo has tracked expanding Russian intelligence activity aimed at both Finnish infrastructure and the country's role supporting Ukraine.

Jyrki Isokangas, a retired colonel and lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, told Yle that Moscow's goal is to divide Western countries and erode their willingness to keep helping Ukraine. "Russia is trying to create an atmosphere in Western countries in which helping Ukraine is seen as something that you shouldn't or can't do," he said.

Isokangas added he doesn't believe Russia is seeking a military confrontation with NATO, an assessment worth weighing against the more alarmed public messaging coming from Finland's own president.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has urged citizens to mentally prepare for possible sabotage incidents, an unusually direct message from a head of state. Supo's own officials are making similar points through more measured, intelligence-agency language.

The Wider Pattern

The sabotage warnings arrive alongside a run of airspace incidents across NATO's eastern and northern flanks. On September 24, Finnish F/A-18 Hornets and Swedish JAS 39 Gripens scrambled together for the first time to intercept a Russian formation, including MiG-31 interceptors, Su-30 fighters, and a Tu-134 transport plane, flying over the Gulf of Finland, according to Fox News, citing the Swedish Armed Forces.

That followed Russian drones entering Polish airspace, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter crossing from Kaliningrad into Poland, drone crashes in Romania and Moldova, and armed Russian jets entering Estonian airspace before NATO intercepted them on September 18.

Martin Herem, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, has warned Russia could be capable of using military force against Estonia within a year. Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the St. Petersburg International United Cultures Forum, publicly dismissed such warnings and mocked Estonia's defense preparations, according to Fox News. Moscow has not responded specifically to the sabotage allegations tied to the Polish Starlink attack or the Telegram recruitment ads.

None of the sourced reporting establishes that Russia has claimed responsibility for any of these incidents, and the Polish arson case remains an active investigation rather than a resolved one. Whether Supo's assessment of an escalating campaign holds up depends on what Finnish, Polish, and other European investigators can substantiate in the months ahead, and whether NATO members coordinate a response beyond public warnings.