In May last year, a 25-year-old Afghan asylum seeker called Sulaiman Ataee walked onto a German market square, drew a hunting knife, and plunged it into the far-Right activist Michael Stürzenberger.

In the 25 seconds of mayhem that followed in Mannheim, one policeman was fatally stabbed in the neck and six people who tried to intervene suffered knife wounds. Mr Stürzenberger survived – just.

Ataee was shot, arrested and charged with murder. His trial began in February.

Ataee, investigators later concluded, had become interested in the Taliban and been influenced by “radical influencers and pseudo-Islamic scholars” on the Telegram messaging app.

Now, new evidence suggests his attack may not only have been an act of Islamist terror – but part of a Russian subversion operation designed to sow chaos on Europe’s streets in order to destabilise the West and undermine its support for Ukraine.

It is a campaign that spans the vandalising of French Holocaust memorials and using foam to block exhaust pipes of cars in Germany, to the petrol bombing of a Latvian museum and arson in east London.

Deadly attacks on German soil

Russian subversion, sabotage and assassination programs long predate the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But the war has seen a surge in suspected attacks, especially since last summer. And while, previously, Russian agencies have focused on disrupting military supplies or gathering intelligence, many more recent operations seem designed to stoke social and political tensions, undermine public trust and boost far-Right parties opposed to sending aid to Kyiv.

That in turn raises questions about a string of similar attacks that followed Mannheim.