Russia’s hybrid warfare spills into NATO, raising new fears
Russia’s increasing use of hybrid and gray-zone attacks against European countries is posing a major challenge for the U.S. and NATO: how to respond without sparking a major conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Baltic countries, Poland and the Czech Republic in particular, are raising alarm that acts of sabotage — and sometimes fatal attacks against individuals — allegedly sponsored by Russia are a growing threat to Europe and the defensive alliance.
“Russia is throwing at us all the time new challenges, new risks, and hybrid has turned to be one of the serious ones for the alliance,” Estonia’s ambassador to NATO, Jüri Luik, said in an interview with The Hill in Washington last week.
“In all seriousness, we have to respond because if we don’t respond, this will grow. And Russia will feel that there are no limits to what they can do in our countries, and obviously, there is also a discussion among allies about what would be the best responses.”
Just in the past few weeks, Estonia has raised alarm that Russia was behind the GPS jamming and disrupting of a commercial flight, and that Russia is sowing confusion along the border by removing maritime border lines.
Poland has blamed the recent death of a Polish border guard as part of the larger, hybrid threat from Belarus and directed by Moscow. Lithuania has said Russia was “likely” behind a March attack on a Russian political dissident in Vilnius.
A hacking group based in Russia is accused of carrying out a dangerous cyberattack against major hospitals in London this month, and instances of arson across NATO countries — targeting supply warehouses for Ukraine but also civilian sites like an Ikea in Lithuania — have raised suspicions of Russian sabotage.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged late last month that the Kremlin was “intensifying its hybrid attacks” against NATO members and raised the possibility of potential retaliation.
“We know what they’re up to, and we will respond both individually and collectively as necessary,” he said following a meeting with foreign ministers of NATO countries.
It is important for countries to respond, including collectively as NATO, to show Russia that lines cannot be crossed, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a group of Baltic officials during a meeting in June.
But NATO countries are likely going to have to accept some risk because Russia’s hybrid activities are too cost-effective for them to stop. There’s no clear answer to establish deterrence, officials at the meeting discussed.
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said that the U.S. is closely watching Russian malign activity, but said its efforts to counter Putin were focused on sanctions targeting Russia’s war economy and increasing military and economic support for Ukraine.
“We are watching these, quote, unquote, ‘hybrid attacks,’ to use your phrase, closely,” Kirby said, responding to a question from The Hill about whether the topic would be addressed at the leaders summit of Group of Seven nations this week, or at the NATO summit to be held in Washington in July.
“We are certainly mindful that these are the kinds of things that Russia has done in the past and has certainly continued to prove their capability of doing now. It is a page from their playbook.”
The leaders of the Bucharest Nine — the countries on NATO’s eastern flank — expressed urgency in a statement earlier this week: “We are deeply concerned about Russia’s recent malign hybrid activities on Allied territory, which constitute a threat to Allied security,” they said.
“These incidents are part of an intensifying campaign of activities which Russia continues to carry out across the Euro-Atlantic area, including sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, provocations related to Allied borders, disinformation campaigns and other hybrid operations.”