Russia Outgrows Hybrid War as US Response Lags — SkimNews
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- Russian drones struck a Ukrainian passenger train near the Polish border in September, with former CIA Director David Petraeus aboard — Ukrzaliznytsia says the likely intended target was a diplomatic train carrying former Swedish PM Carl Bildt and former UK PM Boris Johnson.
- A Russian drone carrying explosives hit the wing of a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport in August — a hub for NATO airlift to the eastern flank — failing only because of a faulty detonator.
- IISS has tracked more than 100 confirmed or suspected Russian incursions into alliance airspace, including an explosive-laden drone shot down over Lithuania and a drone that struck an apartment building in Romania.
- The US Justice Department indicted five people connected to Russian intelligence on conspiracy to finance terrorism — three also charged with murder-for-hire — alleging they recruited people inside the US to surveil and "eliminate" or "disappear" critics of Russia's war in Ukraine.
- Poland announced in late September its fighter jets would no longer need pilot visual confirmation before downing Russian drones, accepting radar-based "positive identification" instead.
- The White House sent mixed signals in September: signing the most significant Russia sanctions legislation since 2017, then reportedly weighing sanctions relief, and inviting Putin to a G20 summit in Miami eight days after DOJ charged the Russian network with plotting murder on US soil.
- Analysts argue Russia is abandoning even implausible deniability as economic pressure mounts in the dragging war, making these overt — not hybrid — operations that demand a clear US response.
Why it matters: European allies have moved to shoot down drones and ease engagement rules, while the White House oscillates between indicting Russian agents for murder-for-hire and inviting Putin to a G20 summit in Miami — a messaging gap that lets Moscow probe for red lines without finding one.
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