Helen Worrell

They're quite socially isolated.

It might be easier to persuade them to do something that's potentially risky or difficult.

And they may ask fewer questions about why exactly they're doing it or who they're doing it for.

I think this is definitely a new front in hybrid warfare.

One thing I would point out very clearly is that in the case of the Ukrainian, we are not saying in our reporting that he was being directed by the Russian state.

What we're saying is that the handler was resident in Russia and was affiliated with a Russian organized crime network.

But I think this is a sign of a sort of informal, almost like a gig economy of people being recruited online, often paid via crypto, to do actions in the real world, whether that's

sabotage whether it's distributing propaganda um and i think one of the factors here is that the risk really lies with the person who's recruited rather than the hostile state or the criminal group that's asking them to do the work for those people who are tasking them it's very hard to trace the activity back to them that's the ft's helen warrell in london thanks so much helen thank you