Ex-taxi driver at center of Russia’s sabotage campaign

Aleksei Vladimirovich Kolosovsky, 42, a scruffy former taxi driver living in Russian farm country, has emerged as a central figure in a Kremlin sabotage campaign against European allies of Ukraine. With ties to criminal networks involved in hacking, fake I.D.s and car theft, he has helped plan and execute plots in Poland, Lithuania, Britain and Germany, including an arson that destroyed more than 1,000 businesses outside Warsaw and a fire at an IKEA in Vilnius.

Not a trained intelligence officer, Kolosovsky operates as a service provider for Russia’s military intelligence, the G.R.U., arranging recruits and moving materials across borders. The G.R.U. expanded its sabotage effort after 2022, elevating Gen. Andrei Averyanov to oversee a Special Activities Service (S.S.D.) with subunits for cyberwarfare, explosives and assassination, while Unit 29155 is now associated with Gen.

Vyacheslav Stafeyev.

Russia, Warsaw; Vilnius

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