Russia is intensifying its hybrid war in Europe, mounting more frequent operations with a constantly shifting front line. But despite Western governments’ increasingly vocal concerns over Russian activity, they have limited coordinated means to defend against it.
The damage to two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea on 17–18 November is the latest instance of suspected sabotage. The Chinese-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, allegedly with a Russian captain at the helm, passed the two cables at approximately the same time as each cable was cut. Danish authorities detained the ship but have yet to attribute the action to Moscow or Beijing. Concerns over the activity of the Yi Peng 3 in the Baltic Sea are well founded. Earlier this year, the deputy head of NATO’s Allied Maritime Command said that Russia and other malicious actors were targeting the extensive vulnerabilities of underwater cables and pipes that connect Europe’s energy and communications networks.
Hybrid war spreads across EuropeUndersea cables are not the only critical national infrastructure (CNI) to be targeted. Earlier in 2024, concerns about the proximity of a recently consecrated Russian Orthodox church built in Västerås, central Sweden, close to an airport and other critical national infrastructure led the Swedish Security Service to find that it was linked to Russian intelligence operations, concluding that the Kremlin uses the Russian Orthodox Church in Sweden as a platform for such activities. The airport is used for Swedish military exercises and is located near an electric power and district heating provider and a number of energy companies, including Westinghouse Electric Company, which provides nuclear fuel for Energoatom, a Ukrainian state enterprise that operates all four nuclear-power plants in the country.
The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in covert operational activity is one strand of the Kremlin’s growing hybrid war against European states that support Ukraine. In late October, Polish prosecutors announced the arrest of four individuals following an investigation into a fire caused by an exploding parcel at a courier firm near Warsaw. The fire is one of three similar incidents that took place in July and are under investigation by security and intelligence agencies in Poland, the United Kingdom and Germany. A second package caused a fire at a DHL warehouse in a suburb of Birmingham, while the third set fire to a container at the DHL hub in Leipzig, the world’s largest hub for air freight. The parcels, all sent from Lithuania, contained electric massage machines with a highly flammable magnesium-based substance inside and, according to Polish authorities, resembled a dress rehearsal for further operational activity.
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