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10 November 2024

The West must respond to Russia’s rapidly escalating hybrid warfare

Doug Livermore

According to recent reports, Russia is currently stepping up its sabotage campaign across the EU as part of Moscow’s hybrid war against the West. “Russia is conducting an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks across our allied territories, interfering directly in our democracies, sabotaging industry, and committing violence,” stated NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on November 4. “This shows that the front line in this war is no longer solely in Ukraine. Increasingly, the front line is moving beyond borders to the Baltic region, to Western Europe, and even to the high north.”

Rutte’s claims are not new. The Russian authorities have long faced accusations of everything from cyberattacks and political manipulation to the deliberate spread of disinformation to destabilize individual countries and sow discord among Western allies. Russian hybrid warfare operations are now often kinetic operations within Western countries. Incendiary devices that ignited in Germany and the United Kingdom in July 2024 were reportedly part of a covert Russian operation that aimed to start fires aboard cargo and passenger flights heading to the US and Canada.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine now approaching the three-year mark, Moscow’s campaign of hybrid hostilities throughout the Western world appears to be escalating. As Russia’s tactics evolve, governments and security services throughout the West must work together to identify threats and counter the Kremlin.

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