"Here's an offer. Make a Molotov cocktail, go out into the woods and practice with it. Send a video. Let's start there."
"And the money when it's done?"
"The money through crypto after the assignment is complete."
The conversation took place on July 10 on the messaging service Telegram between an anonymous recruiter and Valeri Ivanov, a 26-year-old Russian-speaking Estonian who wants to earn some extra money.
But Valeri Ivanov doesn't exist in reality, it's a name used by the journalist network from media outlets Delfi, OCCRP, Paper Trail Media, ZDF and Der Standard to find out more about the attempts to recruit Europeans to commit sabotage in their home countries.
According to security experts and intelligence officials, these recruitment attempts have increased recently. Advertisements for the account Privjet Bot (Hello Bot in Russian), where the recruiter writes, have been published several times over the past year on the pro-Russian Telegram channel Grey Zone, which has ties to the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
After a brief conversation, the fictional Valeri Ivanov is offered money to spy on military bases, set fire to NATO vehicles and commit murder for $10,000 each.
Over the past two years, the number of sabotage attempts in Europe has increased, says Indrek Kannik at the Estonian International Centre for Defence and Security.
This is terrorism in its purest form, he says.
