NATO has upped its “vigilance” amid an increase in “Russian intelligence activity” across its member countries, the military alliance’s secretary-general acknowledged on Tuesday 

Asked about recent suspected Russian sabotage and arson attempts targeted at warehouses, shopping centres and households across EU and NATO countries, Stoltenberg refrained from directly pinning responsibility on the Kremlin.

But he clearly indicated the alliance was monitoring the events and underlined the importance of criminal investigations at national level.

“We have seen increased Russian intelligence activity across the alliance, therefore we have increased our vigilance, we have our own services who are closely monitoring what the Russians are doing,” Stoltenberg – who is due to step down in October after a decade at NATO’s helm – said.

“It is important that also nations are taking action (with) the arrests and the legal processes that have now started in the UK, in Germany, in Poland and in other countries,” he added.

“We need to be ready and we need to share intelligence (…) to counter these different types of hybrid acts aimed at undermining the ability of NATO allies to provide support to Ukraine.”

Russian attempts to ‘intimidate’

Over the weekend, a New York Times report citing US and allied security officials claimed some of the recent hybrid attacks – notably attempted arson – in Europe were the work of the GRU, Moscow’s military intelligence arm. 

The incidents include recent arson attempts on sites across Poland which led to nine individuals being arrested on suspicion of Russian sabotage last Tuesday.

Speaking to Polish broadcaster TVN24 last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the suspects – allegedly Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish citizens – had “engaged directly on behalf of the Russian services in acts of sabotage in Poland,” including physical assault, arson and attempted arson.

Tusk said the attacks included an attempt to set fire to a paint factory in the western Polish city of Wroclaw, as well as other recent incidents in Lithuania, Latvia, and potentially Sweden.

A recent arson at an Ikea warehouse in Lithuania is now suspected of being linked to the Kremlin’s operations.

Speaking to local media last Wednesday, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa also warned of possible Russian operations in the country, noting that “arson is one of the most typical forms of diversion for Russian special services.”

In April, two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Germany for planning bombings and arson attacks against critical infrastructure and military bases.

Authorities in the United Kingdom, a non-EU member state but a NATO ally, also arrested two men in late April after an arson attempt on a Ukraine-linked business on an industrial estate in east London.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of  EU defence ministers in Brussels on Tuesday, the Netherlands’ defence minister Kajsa Ollongren also raised the alarm: “What we’re seeing now in several European countries is Russia trying to destabilise us, also to intimidate us.”

“We are aware of this new way of working,” she added. “And, so, yes, we are vulnerable. I think all of us are. We have vital infrastructure, we have undersea bed infrastructure, we have electricity supplies, water supplies (…) We are vulnerable but we can also protect ourselves if we cooperate between partners, with industry, and with our security services,” she added.

The bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said there was no evidence yet to incriminate Russia for such attacks.

Clashes erupted on Monday between pro-Palestinian university students and riot police outside the Egyptian embassy in Beirut. Dozens of university students gathered outside the embassy, holding Palestinian flags and calling on the Egyptian government to open the Rafah border crossing and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

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Israeli researchers digging in Jerusalem’s City of David archeological site have uncovered an “exceedingly well-preserved” 2,300-year-old gold ring that is believed to have belonged to a boy or girl that lived in the area during the Hellenistic period. 

The piece of jewelry, which is “made of gold and set with a red precious stone, apparently a garnet,” has “accumulated no rust nor suffered other weathering of time,” the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Monday. 

“I was sifting earth through the screen and suddenly saw something glitter,” Tehiya Gangate, a City of David excavation team member, said in a statement. “I immediately yelled, ‘I found a ring, I found a ring!’ Within seconds everyone gathered around me, and there was great excitement.”

“This is an emotionally moving find, not the kind you find every day,” she added. “In truth I always wanted to find gold jewelry, and I am very happy this dream came true – literally a week before I went on maternity leave.”   

EXPEDITION TO ‘HOLY GRAIL’ SHIPWRECK FULL OF GOLD, EMERALDS BEGINS IN CARIBBEAN SEA 

The Israel Antiquities Authority says the ring was “recently found in the joint Israel Antiquities Authority-Tel Aviv University excavation in the City of David, part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park, with the support of the Elad Foundation.” 

It will be put on display to the public in early June during Jerusalem Day. 

“The ring is very small. It would fit a woman’s pinky, or a young girl or boy’s finger,” the IAA cited Dr. Yiftah Shalev and Riki Zalut Har-Tov, Israel Antiquities Authority Excavation Directors, as saying. 

Tel Aviv University Professor Yuval Gadot and excavator Efrat Bocher added that, “The recently found gold ring joins other ornaments of the early Hellenistic period found in the City of David excavations, including the horned-animal earring and the decorated gold bead.”   

WOMAN OUT FOR A WALK STUMBLES UPON ONCE IN A DECADE DISCOVERY 

A researcher poses with the ring after it was found in Jerusalem’s City of David. (Israel Antiquities Authority)

“Whereas in the past we found only a few structures and finds from this era, and thus most scholars assumed Jerusalem was then a small town, limited to the top of the southeastern slope (“City of David”) and with relatively very few resources, these new finds tell a different story: The aggregate of revealed structures now constitute an entire neighborhood,” they said. 

“They attest to both domestic and public buildings, and that the city extended from the hilltop westward. The character of the buildings – and now of course, the gold finds and other discoveries, display the city’s healthy economy and even its elite status. It certainly seems that the city’s residents were open to the widespread Hellenistic style and influences prevalent also in the eastern Mediterranean Basin,” the researchers added. 

Those involved with the excavation say the ring helps “paint a new picture of the nature and stature of Jerusalem’s inhabitants in the Early Hellenistic Period.” (Israel Antiquities Authority)

The IAA says “Gold jewelry was well-known in the Hellenistic world, from Alexander the Great’s reign onward” as “his conquests helped spread and transport luxury goods and products.”