The Kremlin at twilight, with a red sky overhead. Russia has launched a campaign of sabotage and low-level “shadow warfare” in Europe, which has struggled to mount a collective response. (Shutterstock/Skreidzeleu)

Russia’s Intensifying Shadow War Against Europe

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Russia has maintained plausible deniability in connection to each sabotage incident—but together, they add up to a pattern of low-level warfare to which European democracies must respond.

Drone attacks on rail lines in Western Ukraine, narrowly missing former high officials including Carl Bildt and Boris Johnson. An armed drone shot down by NATO jets over Lithuania. Mysterious blasts at an Italian defense plant. An arson attack on an Estonian contractor. A suspicious blaze at a missile component facility in Poland. Deliberate sabotage targeting high-voltage power grids across Germany, alongside dangerous near-misses at a major German airport cargo hub.

To the casual observer, these recent events might look like a series of random, low-level disruptions. In reality, they are coordinated elements of a systematic Russian campaign to destabilize Europe and test the West’s resolve. Russia is waging war against the West.

Understanding Russia’s “Shadow Warfare” Campaign

Facing what it views as an existential fight for survival, Moscow sees physical sabotage in Western countries, domestic repression, and the war in Ukraine as separate fronts in the same overarching conflict. 

The Kremlin knows it cannot win a conventional conflict with the West. It therefore increasingly relies on shadow warfare: a concerted campaign of........

© The National Interest