drones and agents launch attacks on his countries, but now she is doing what a few years ago would have seemed unreal: She is planning her counterattack.
According to two senior European officials and three diplomats, the ideas under consideration range from coordinated cyber attacks against Russia and a faster, better-coordinated attribution to Moscow of responsibility, to conducting unannounced NATO-led military exercises near Russia’s border.
As Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said in an interview: “The Russians are constantly testing the limits — what is the reaction, how far can we go?” “We need to give a proactive response,” he argued speaking to Politico, while adding “and it’s not the words that send a message, it’s the actions.”
Russian drones have flown over Poland and Romania in recent weeks and months, while mysterious drones have wreaked havoc at airports and military bases across Europe. Other incidents also include GPS jamming, intrusions by fighter jets and warships, and an explosion on a key Polish railway through which military aid to Ukraine passes.
“Overall, Europe and the Alliance must ask themselves how much longer we are willing to tolerate this kind of hybrid warfare and whether we should consider becoming more active ourselves in this matter,” German Deputy Defense Minister Florian Hahn told Welt TV last week.
Hybrid attacks are nothing new. Russia has in recent years sent hitmen to assassinate political opponents in the UK, has been accused of blowing up weapons depots in Central Europe, attempted to destabilize the EU by funding far-right parties, engaged in a disinformation war on social media and tried to influence elections in countries such as Romania and Moldova.
However, the scale and frequency of the current attacks are unprecedented. Globsec, a Prague-based think tank, estimated that more than 110 acts of sabotage and attempted attacks were carried out in Europe between January and July, mostly in Poland and France, by people with ties to Moscow.
“Today’s world offers a much more open — one might even say creative — space for conducting foreign policy,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the Valdai conference in October, adding: “We are closely watching the growing militarization of Europe. Is it just rhetoric or is it time to answer?’
Russia may see the EU and NATO as rivals or even enemies — former Russian president and current deputy head of the Kremlin’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said last month: “The US is our adversary.” However, Europe does not want war with a nuclear power and must find a way to respond in a way that deters Moscow without crossing Kremlin “red lines” that could lead to open conflict.
But this does not mean that we should be afraid, according to the Swedish Chief of Defense, General Mikael Kleason. “We cannot allow ourselves to be afraid and anxious about a possible escalation,” he said, adding: “We have to be decisive.”
Until now, the answer has been to strengthen the defense. After the downing of Russian war drones over Poland, NATO announced it would boost air defenses and drone detection systems on its eastern flank — a move backed by the EU.
Even that is enough to anger Moscow. Europeans “should fear and tremble like dumb animals in a herd led to slaughter,” Medvedev said. “They must be stained with fear, feeling their near and agonizing end.”
Speed change
Frequent Russian provocations are changing the tone in European capitals.
After deploying 10,000 troops to protect Poland’s critical infrastructure following the sabotage of the Warsaw-Kiev rail line, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday accused Moscow of engaging in “state terrorism.” The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaya Callas, said such threats posed an “extreme risk” to the Union and argued there should be a “strong response”.
Last week, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto criticized the continent’s “inaction” in the face of growing hybrid attacks and unveiled a 125-page retaliation plan. In it he proposes the creation of a European Center for Countering Hybrid Warfare, a force of 1,500 cyber experts, as well as military personnel specialized in artificial intelligence.
“Everyone needs to review their security protocols,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski argued on Thursday. “Russia is clearly escalating its hybrid war against EU citizens”.
From words to actions
Despite the increasingly tough rhetoric, the question of what a more forceful response means remains open.
This is due, in part, to the difference between Moscow and Brussels — the latter are bound by rules that limit their movements, explains Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director of the GEODE think tank in Paris.
“This raises a moral and philosophical question: Can states governed by the rule of law use the same tools … and the same strategies as the Russians?” he wondered.
So far, countries such as Germany and Romania are strengthening the legal framework that would allow authorities to shoot down drones over airports and military-sensitive facilities.
At the same time, however, the national security services can and do operate in a “grey zone”. Allies such as Denmark and the Czech Republic already allow offensive cyber operations. The United Kingdom allegedly hacked the networks of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2017 in order to obtain information about a drone program that the terrorist organization had begun to develop.
Allies must “be able to act proactively when it comes to cyber attacks,” Braze argued, focusing on “enhancing situational awareness — security and intelligence cooperation and coordination.”
In practice, countries could use cyberwarfare methods to target systems critical to Russia’s war effort, such as the Alabuga economic zone in Tatarstan, where Moscow produces Shahed drones, as well as energy facilities or trains carrying weapons, according to Filip Bryka, a political scientist and hybrid threat expert at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “We could attack the system and disrupt its operation,” he said.
Europe must also understand how to respond to Russia’s extensive disinformation campaigns with its own domestic actions.
“Russian public opinion … is partly out of reach,” argued a senior military official. “We need to work with allies who have a deep understanding of Russian thinking — and that means working together in the information warfare space.”
But any new measure “should be easy to refuse to engage in,” said one EU diplomat.
Show of power
NATO, for its part, is a defense organization and thus wary of aggressive operations. “Asymmetric responses are an important part of the discussion,” argued a NATO diplomat, “but we are not going to resort to the same tactics as Russia.”
Instead, the Alliance should prioritize shows of force that demonstrate strength and unity, said Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokeswoman and researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London. In practice, this means quickly revealing and attributing responsibility to Moscow in any hybrid attack and conducting surprise “without warning” military exercises on Russia’s borders with Lithuania or Estonia.
At the same time, NATO’s Center of Excellence for Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, which brings together allied officials, “provides expertise and training” and develops “policies to address these threats,” said Maarten ten Volde, the organization’s senior analyst.
“Undoubtedly, more needs to be done in the area of hybrid threats,” said a senior NATO diplomat, including strengthening collective accountability after attacks and ensuring that “we show through various means that we are watching closely and can move resources flexibly.”
