Russia’s disposable agents: Characteristics, roles, and organisational structure of hybrid warfare operatives in Europe, 2022-2025

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has increasingly used a “hybrid” strategy, supporting its conventional battlefield operations with irregular activities against Kyiv’s European supporters. At their forefront are low-cost and easily replaced “disposable agents” that provide Russia with considerable operational reach as well as plausible deniability. Using a new dataset of 127 disposable agents, this study combines descriptive and inferential statistics with social network analysis to exploratively examine their demographics, roles, deployment patterns, and organisational structure. Findings indicate that disposable agents are predominantly male, mid-thirties, drawn disproportionately from Ukrainian, Russian, Moldovan, and Bulgarian populations, and quite frequently re-used. Networks appear structurally hierarchical and compartmentalised, and seem designed with plausible deniability in mind. However, inconsistent operational security by GRU and FSB officers may have limited Russia’s ability to claim ignorance. The findings provide empirical insight into a covert and significant facet of Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy, informing both policy responses to an ongoing threat and further scholarship.