Olivia Allinson co-authors RUSI Journal article on illicit financing of hybrid threats
SOC ACE researcher Olivia Allinson has co-authored a new article with Oksana Ihnatenko, Combatting the Illicit Financing of Hybrid Threats: Lessons from Russia’s Destabilisation of Europe, published in the RUSI Journal, Volume 171, Issue 5 (2026).
The article examines how Russia and other hostile actors use illicit financial networks to support hybrid warfare, combining physical sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation to undermine democratic institutions and societal resilience. The authors argue that, although the intersection of financial crime and real-world violence has historically prompted significant changes in financial oversight, the growing threat posed by hybrid warfare has yet to generate a similarly coordinated response.
Drawing on examples from Ukraine and across Europe, the article explores how hostile actors finance and recruit individuals to carry out disruptive activities. These include paying recruits in cash or cryptocurrency to conduct sabotage, exploiting cyberattacks to generate funds for further operations and using payments to influencers or public officials to promote divisive narratives.
Allinson and Ihnatenko argue that existing anti-money laundering frameworks, including those developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), could play a greater role in identifying and disrupting these financial flows. Their recommendations include expanding FATF evaluations to account for vulnerabilities to state threats, improving cross-border information sharing and strengthening oversight of cryptocurrency exchanges, cash movements and money mule networks. They also call for greater international cooperation to address the technological and informational dimensions of hybrid warfare, which extend beyond traditional financial crime controls.
The article highlights the need for a more coordinated approach that recognises how financial mechanisms enable hostile states to exploit social and economic vulnerabilities and undermine security across borders.
