European governments are warning that Russia’s campaign of sabotage, cyber-attacks, disinformation and other forms of coercion against NATO countries is becoming more aggressive, forcing the alliance to strengthen its defences while avoiding a confrontation that could escalate into open war.
The warnings come as European intelligence agencies increasingly focus on what they describe as Moscow’s use of activity below the threshold of conventional warfare to disrupt critical infrastructure, undermine political systems and weaken support for Ukraine.
“It’s full scale,” Latvia’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braže told The Hill.
“Those activities cannot be called hybrid anymore because they are actual attacks,” she added.
The assessment reflects a growing concern among European governments that the distinction between conventional and so-called grey-zone warfare is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.
Denmark’s Defence Intelligence Service said on September 24 that Russia was expected to further escalate its hybrid war against NATO and the West in the coming months. It assessed a “low, but growing risk” that Moscow could launch limited military attacks against a NATO member even while its war in Ukraine continues.
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The Danish assessment also warned that Russian hybrid activity could include destructive cyber-attacks capable of disrupting critical societal functions and sabotage operations carrying a high risk of casualties.
At the same time, Danish intelligence said a full-scale Russian invasion of a NATO country remained unlikely, although it could no longer be completely excluded.
That distinction matters for European governments trying to strengthen deterrence without creating a cycle of escalation.
Braže said Latvia had experienced suspected acts of sabotage involving arson at facilities linked to military production and weapons storage. The country also faces pressure along its border with Belarus, where Latvian authorities have accused Minsk of using migration as a tool of coercion.
“It’s an organised migrant activity against the external border of NATO and the EU,” Braže said, describing it as a scheme involving Belarusian security forces and links to Russia.
Latvia has previously described Russia’s activity, including an attempted drone attack against Leipzig Airport in Germany, as state-sponsored terrorism.
Other European governments have similarly warned that Moscow is testing the resilience of NATO members.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said Russia was “systematically testing NATO’s vigilance and readiness to respond”, arguing that the incidents could not be treated as isolated events.
The response across Europe has increasingly focused on resilience rather than retaliation.
Governments are strengthening protection around critical infrastructure, military facilities and energy networks, increasing intelligence-sharing, expelling suspected Russian intelligence officers and tightening controls on Russian nationals.
The European Commission has also proposed a “counter-hybrid playbook” that would allow EU countries to co-ordinate their response to sub-military threats such as sabotage, arson and drone incursions.
The Baltic states are particularly exposed because of their proximity to Russia and Belarus. Lithuania, for example, is constructing a fortified electricity substation close to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad as part of the Harmony Link project connecting the Baltic power system to western Europe. The facility is being designed with additional protection against drone and other attacks.
The cost of defending infrastructure is rising alongside the perceived threat.
Undersea cables and pipelines have become a particular concern because damage can disrupt communications and energy supplies while making attribution difficult.
Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the increase in unexplained damage to subsea infrastructure was part of a wider European security problem.
“We’ve had decades of subsea cables and pipelines, and there has only been occasional damage, every so often,” she said.
But over the past five years, “mysterious and very severe incidents involving subsea cables” have increased, she said.
The attraction for an adversary is clear: relatively inexpensive acts of sabotage can impose high economic and political costs.
“If you can do that at very small expense, and with not very much effort, and with impunity, then if you’re a country like Russia that doesn’t care about its standing in the world, doesn’t care about ethics, morals, or its reputation, then that is clearly a very attractive option,” Braw said.
Yet European governments face a difficult calculation over how far to respond.
“It’s important to remember that even though lots of social media users and the armchair generals say we should hit back strongly, powerfully, if we escalated, if we responded with military means to these attacks, then Russia would respond with military means,” Braw said.
“And we would have war. And surely that can’t be in our interest.”
The strategic objective for Moscow, according to European officials and security analysts, is less about seizing territory than creating disruption: increasing financial costs, weakening public confidence, exploiting political divisions and testing whether NATO countries respond collectively.
That makes hybrid warfare particularly difficult to deter.
A conventional attack is relatively easy to identify. A fire at a warehouse, damage to a railway, a cyber intrusion or a disrupted cable can create uncertainty over responsibility while forcing governments to decide how far they are prepared to escalate.
Russia’s approach therefore presents NATO with a problem that conventional military superiority alone cannot solve.
European governments are increasingly treating infrastructure protection, intelligence co-operation and public resilience as part of national defence.
The challenge is to close the gaps that Moscow can exploit without turning every act of sabotage into a trigger for a wider military confrontation.
As Zelensky put it: “Russia’s behaviour, their choice, is to continue escalating.”
For Europe, the task is now to ensure that escalation does not become the only available response.
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