Max Boo
On Christmas Day, a cable carrying electricity from Finland to Estonia was severed in the Baltic Sea, while four other submarine cables carrying data were damaged. Finnish authorities found an anchor drag mark on the seabed and seized a tanker that is believed to be part of the “shadow fleet” that Russia uses to export oil and gas in violation of Western sanctions.
This is only the latest act of sabotage in Europe attributed to the Kremlin. Just a month ago, a Chinese ship was believed to have cut two other data cables in Swedish waters at Moscow’s behest. In the past year, Russian operatives are also suspected of trying to plant incendiary devices on a cargo plane in Germany; plotting to kill the head of a major German company manufacturing weapons for Ukraine; committing arson attacks in Poland, Britain and Germany; and interfering in elections in Romania and Moldova, among other countries.
Russia is conducting “an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks across our allied territories, interfering directly in our democracies, sabotaging industry and committing violence,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in November. But what exactly is a “hybrid war,” and what should the West do about it?
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