Who Trolled Amber? - Introducing... Rogue Russia: Agents of mayhem

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Last October, the head of MI5 said Russia was on a mission to cause "sustained mayhem" on European streets. It might be hard to spot at first, but it is there in plain sight. This is the unpredictable, violent world of the modern Russian intelligence servicesTo find out more about Tortoise:Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalistsSubscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free contentBecome a member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and moreIf you want to get in touch with us directly about a story, or tell us more about the stories you want to hear about contact [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Alexi here. There will be a brand new series on this channel very soon, do keep an eye out for it. But while you're waiting, I wanted to tell you about a story I've been working on for our other investigative show, the Slow Newscast. Along with my producer Gary I've been looking into the story of an unusual arson attack carried out against a small Latvian museum, and what it reveals about the dark world of Russian secret agents. Here's a small snippet from the episode, it's called Rogue Russia, Agents of Mayhem. If I have a telephone call at night, I understand that something happened, something awful happened. It's the middle of the night in the Latvian capital, Uiga.

Solvita Viba is woken by a phone call. The person on the other end has some alarming news. It's about the Museum of Occupation, a museum that Solvita runs. It's one of Latvia's most famous institutions. To many in the country, the museum is a symbol of resistance to the Soviet Union and to the Nazis. And now Solvita is being told, come quickly, there's trouble. and fire in a museum. This is the most awful thing in the museum. And I was shocked, but I immediately ran to the museum. It's a cold February night last year,

but Solvita makes her way to Riga's old town at once, to see for herself. Soon enough, she learns what took place. At around one o'clock, a window of my office on the ground floor of the museum here, you can see it, was smashed and a Molotov cocktail was thrown in and my office was exploded. I've seen photographs from the scene.

They show Solvita's office covered in shattered glass. The walls are blackened with smoke. This was no accident. Someone had targeted her office, her museum. An attack on the museum is an attack on the story of our country and our values. Therefore, I think that this is an attack on the foundations of the Latvian state, the constitution and the truth. The Russian occupation of Latvia was brutal.

Russian troops only left in 1994 and memories are still fresh. The museum was set up to teach the public about exactly this and the 50 years when the country was occupied. So the Molotov cocktail thrown into Solvita's office wasn't just a random display of arson, it was a political act. This is important to say that the main decision at that night was the museum would be open the next morning. In a gesture of defiance, Solvita welcomes in visitors. This was the main decision and we had to prove that the museum could not be silent by such a method. And the museum's message was we cannot

be intimidated. The firebomb at the museum was shocking. If it hadn't been for the modern fire prevention system, it might have burnt down the whole building. But to be honest, it's still not a huge story. A local TV station reported on it, but unsurprisingly the news didn't travel. Windows were patched up, Solvita's office was repainted, life went on. That's if you look at it in isolation. But this wasn't an isolated attack. To listen to the full episode, search for the Slow Newscast. If you're a Tortoise Plus subscriber or a Tortoise member, you get ad-free and early access to the Slow Newscast episodes before anyone else. Be the first to hear our brilliant weekly narrative investigations

only on the Slow Newscast.