Russia accused of sending spies to 'poop' in MPs' toilets as part of alleged intimidation campaign

Around 20 Finnish members of parliament (MPs) have reported mysterious break-ins at their homes, with one of them finding faeces left behind in his toilet... And they say Russia is the culprit.

Russia is being accused of sending secret agents to carry out the intrusions as part of an incredibly strange intimidation campaign against the West, according to The Telegraph.

Ben Zyskowicz, a senior MP for Finland's ruling center-right National Coalition Party, believes the behavior is part of a Russian plot to scare legislators.

"It's a way for the Russian intelligence service to show that people are being monitored, a way to create confusion or concerns," he said.

Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of the Finnish parliament, has launched an investigation into what he called a 'significant' series of break-ins.

He said clues were left in politicians' apartments to show someone had been there, yet there were no signs of forced entry and nothing was stolen or damaged.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said: "An attack on a member of parliament is an attack on democracy." (Photo by Mikko Stig / Lehtikuva / AFP via Getty Images)

"I cannot comment precisely on the number of suspicious cases known to us, but in any event it is a significant number," he added.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, when asked about the incidents, said: "An attack on a member of parliament is an attack on democracy. It should not be allowed or accepted in any form... I stand in support of every member of parliament."

The incidents appear to be the first time such tactics have been used in Finland, which angered Russia by joining NATO after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

With parliamentary elections six months away, authorities are on high alert for potential Kremlin sabotage or influence campaigns.

Russian intelligence services have long used home break-ins against politicians and diplomats.

Alexander Bortnikov runs Russia's Federal Security Service as FSB Director. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

The US State Department described the method as 'home intrusions', in which agents move personal items, open windows and set alarms to demoralize and intimidate targets.

Agents from Russia and other countries with feared intelligence services have also been known to urinate in diplomats' and journalists' toilets to show they can enter their homes.

In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent defecated in a senior US official's suitcase during a visit to Russia.

Former BBC Russia correspondent Sarah Rainsford wrote in her memoir Goodbye to Russia that spies entered her apartment and left 'a large unflushed deposit in each toilet' as a calling card.

Guardian reporter Luke Harding also claimed FSB officers often broke into his Moscow apartment, once leaving a sex manual shortly before he was expelled from Russia in 2011.

Journalist Luke Harding said the FSB broke into his flat and left a sex manual. (Photo by Massimiliano Donati/Awakening/Getty Images)

Harding reported in his book Mafia State that the KGB developed 'operational psychology' in the 1960s, drawing inspiration from German Stasi agents.

The Stasi targeted dissidents' homes to make them think they were going mad, removing pictures from walls or swapping one type of tea for another.

Some victims suffered breakdowns or took their own lives.

Writer Jürgen Fuchs, who was targeted, called the 'Zersetzung' technique 'an assault on the human soul'.

Before his death in 1999, he was convinced the secret police had deliberately exposed him to radiation, causing his terminal cancer, after three dissidents died within a short period from similar rare forms of leukemia.