The map that shows Russia’s ‘secret war’ with the West has now begun

A recent report by academics at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) identified the same shift: that in the “gig-economy era”, the Kremlin can outsource its aggression to anybody in want of a payday and willing to risk drawing the attention of the security services. The benefits of putting more and more layers between Russia and the eventual perpetrator are obvious when it comes to plausible deniability, as well as the sheer scale and speed of the work, but so are the basic economics of the deal.