Russia appears to have escalated its shadow war in Europe this year. European officials have alleged that Russian fighter planes have veered inside Polish, Lithuanian and Estonian airspace, testing reaction times. Suspected Russian drones have been downed over Poland, Finland and the Baltic states.
And Moscow has been accused of bringing trouble to the Black Sea. In two separate operations in October, Ukraine accused Russia of using aerial and surface drones to sink four cargo ships just outside the territorial waters of Bulgaria, a European Union and NATO member, in an apparent warning that Ukraine’s grain exports through NATO territorial waters may not be safe for long. Russia and Belarus have also been accused of trying to destabilise the Baltic states by making their borders appear fluid.
On the same day in a separate incident, masked individuals crossed into Latvian territory and carried out deliberate sabotage. Bborder infrastructure was damaged, and surveillance equipment was removed.” Latvian media have reported that asylum seekers and undocumented migrants who tried to run back from the Latvian border were rounded up by Belarusian authorities and pushed towards Latvia again. Cesniece drew a direct link between the Russian war in Ukraine and its shadow war in Europe.
As European governments warned of an imminent escalation of a Russian shadow war on the continent, experts said the bloc needs to do more to deter Russia as well as defend itself. And I’m not sure Russia currently sees those costs as sufficiently high.” As an expert on following money trails, she believes European governments have not done enough to identify the networks behind operations, expose the command structures, disrupt their financing and logistics, and impose consequences. Meanwhile, Russia’s war is going badly on the ground.
Two Ukrainian counteroffensives have blunted Moscow’s main thrust to capture the eastern region of Donetsk and in effect have deprived it of any territorial gains this year. Since a failed August operation to blow up cargo planes at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport, which was later verified by the European Commission as a Russian operation, warnings of further escalation have multiplied. Czech spy chief Michal Koudelka warned in September that Russia might attempt a military attack on a NATO member in “months, not years”.
Days later, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova openly declared that European defence industries supplying Ukraine were legitimate targets for Moscow. That followed a report from a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that Russia had planted incendiary devices in the offices of defence companies Rohde & Schwarz and Helsing in Munich. It also followed a report on the Politico news site in which EU security officials said Russia was planning to move beyond messaging and claim lives on European soil.
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