Russia's Hybrid Attacks Surge as NATO Fails to Deter — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Russia's hybrid attacks on NATO territory became brazen and undeniable in late July, when a Russian cruise missile struck Polish soil, three explosive drones were found at Leipzig airport, three drones crossed Romanian airspace, and a Spanish jet shot down a fourth near the Moldovan border.
- The 2025 NATO Hague summit secured a 5% GDP defense spending commitment by 2035 but delivered no new Russia strategy and did not even mention hybrid warfare in its final declaration.
- Russian incursions in Europe quadrupled during the war's first year, per CSIS, and diversified into railway sabotage, incendiary packages on cargo planes, and payments to criminal networks to burn weapons depots.
- Trump's return to the White House consumed NATO's bandwidth on defense spending demands; during a November 2025 visit to NATO headquarters, one permanent representative told the author, "We spend most of our time managing you."
- NATO's "Eastern Sentry" initiative, launched after about 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace and three Russian jets crossed into Estonian airspace in September 2025, increased eastern-flank vigilance but failed to halt further Russian attacks.
- Russian-backed hackers deployed "wiper" malware against 30 Polish energy facilities in December 2025, submarines were caught near Svalbard testing a weapon designed to disable undersea cables, and a Russian drone struck a residential building in Romania in May — the first such attack.
- Putin's strategic aims — fracturing alliance unity, testing Article 5 commitment, raising the cost of supporting Ukraine — depend on each provocation costing Moscow nothing more than a downed drone, the author argues.
Why it matters: The author, former U.S. permanent representative to NATO (2021–2024), argues NATO's refusal to define consequences for hybrid attacks — neither at the 2023 summit, nor at the 2025 Hague summit, nor via Eastern Sentry — leaves Putin with every incentive to keep escalating, raising the risk of a catastrophic loss-of-life incident from ongoing drone, missile, and cyber operations.
Ask SkimNews
