Europe Wants to Get the Word Out: Russia Is to Blame for Sabotage
Officials are accusing Russia of smaller-scale assaults. President Vladimir V. Putin sought to turn the tables, saying that if Europe were to start a war, Russia is ready.
When Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland accused Russian agents last month of planting explosives on a rail line, he called it “perhaps the most dangerous situation for the security of the Polish state” in years, even though no one was hurt.
Around the same time, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto of Italy urged Europe to protect itself better from disinformation that he said Russia directed at his country. “We are under attack, and the hybrid bombs keep falling,” he concluded in a report.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was even more blunt. “Russia is committing state-sponsored terrorism,” she said recently.
Hybrid attacks against Europe — a barrage of drone incursions, cyberstrikes and acts of sabotage that stop short of open warfare — are on the rise from a relative lull earlier this year, according to military officials and experts who have long believed that Russia is to blame for the assaults and is using them to test NATO allies. In the past few months alone, the hybrid assaults included jamming aviation-navigation systems over Sweden, sending drones over Danish and Belgian airports and smuggling explosives into Poland in cans of corn, officials have said.
In response, European countries are changing their tone. Officials are rebuking Russia more forcefully and more often, embracing a naming-and-shaming strategy that just a year ago divided the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
There are risks. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warned Europe on Tuesday about appearing more assertive. “We are not planning to fight with Europe, but if Europe suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready right now,” Mr. Putin said.
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