Europe on High Alert As Russia Sows Panic With Hybrid Attacks - Newsweek

Russia is stepping up hybrid attacks against Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron has said in the latest warning by a European leader about the threat Moscow poses as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds on.

After meeting with other French political parties on Friday, Macron said, “the Russian hybrid threat, facing Europeans and France ‌has intensified," and that, “the nature of Russian aggression is changing."

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, analysts and politicians have noted a spike in attacks on infrastructure in Europe, with non-military sites like shopping centers and border posts increasingly targeted in actions Moscow has been blamed for.

Russia has denied hybrid attacks but Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov this week warned European countries against sending troops to Ukraine, which would be seen by Russia as a declaration of war, adding: "If Europe attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short."

Already accused of interfering in elections and weaponizing migrants trying to reach Europe, Russia is also suspected of sabotage, arson, attacks on critical infrastructure, cyberattacks, and airspace violations.

“As Russia’s war effort in Ukraine struggles, it has a clear imperative to increase pressure on Kyiv’s European allies,” said Matthew Arnold, program director of the London School of Economics think tank LSE IDEAS’ Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War Program.

“The intent is very simple— to cause a pervasive, intensifying sense among European publics that insecurity is increasing,” Arnold told Newsweek.

Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.

As an example of the threat Russia poses, Macron referred to the strike on a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train on September 13 which took place less than two miles from Poland’s border.

The attack occurred after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European security officials had passed through on the same line but on a different train. No casualties were reported and it did not take place inside Poland, but the proximity to NATO territory has sparked concerns.

Poland has been at the front line of Russian drone incursions and its prime minister Donald Tusk warned on Thursday of a real risk of Russian strikes on countries supporting Ukraine inside NATO, which Moscow would claim were accidental, in order to split the alliance.

NATO's Article 5 mutual defense clause says an attack on one member would be an attack on all and alliance chief, and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said this week that Russia “continues to lash out with reckless and dangerous attacks.”

Other country leaders continue to voice alarm at the increase in drones from Russia entering NATO airspace, in particular, the Baltic states and Romania.

Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda said on Wednesday that Moscow may be deliberately allowing Russian drones to deviate from their intended course and enter NATO airspace to punish countries supporting Ukraine.

Last month, Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said that Russia had deliberately launched some of its drones into Moldovan and NATO airspace. Moldova is not a member of the alliance but Sandu has accused Moscow of political interference and hybrid warfare.

Earlier this month, Finland’s Interior Minister Mari Rantanen unveiled a 120-mile fence near the Nuijamaa border crossing point in the southeast of the country to stop Moscow’s tactic of sending migrants to the frontier with the NATO member.

Meanwhile, Russian drone attacks appear to be going deeper into European territory where officials cited by Bloomberg fear that it’s only a matter of time before there are civilian casualties.

On August 11, divers destroyed two drones floating off the coast of Romania near an energy project. Later that month, Bucharest scrambled two F-16s to take out a maritime drone near the same Black Sea gas platform.

Also in August, German police detected an armed drone at Leipzig airport, while this week NATO jets downed another unmanned aircraft that entered Lithuanian airspace from neighboring Belarus, an ally of Moscow.

The U.S. Justice Department accused the Russian intelligence service of conspiring to finance terrorism and commit murder for hire in Europe. Defense plants, public utilities, transport systems and communications networks are also in the firing line, presenting a headache for European leaders.

Arnold from LSE Ideas said that Russia’s approach blended more overt forms of state aggression, such as drone incursions and cutting undersea internet cables, with more mundane acts they can deny.

“The compounding effect is to generate social anxiety and unease,” he said, “a lot of little acts add up and have significant impact toward shaping the psyches of publics worried about a world seemingly descending into mayhem and war.”

Cristian Vlas, from ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project) has told Newsweek that as Russia ramps up its sabotage campaign aimed at disrupting European arms deliveries and production for Ukraine, it increasingly relies on proxies employed through online channels for disruptive operations.

“Its second intended motive is to sow panic in the European public opinion about the risks of continuing support to Ukraine and getting drawn into a conflict with Russia,” Vlas said.

Hadi Ghanbari, assistant professor at Aalto University School of Business in Finland, said pro-Russian hacker groups had conducted cyberattacks on a wide range of public and private entities across European and NATO countries.

“These physical and digital disruptions increasingly share the same pattern. They are low cost, contribute to Russia’s propaganda machine, and at the same time offer a level of plausible deniability," he explained.

The attack on the train near the Polish border was the latest incident in what appears to be a shifting focus for Moscow to target rail infrastructure, in particular inside Ukraine.

Vlas, ACLED's Eastern Europe analyst, said that suspected sabotage, often using disposable agents, had previously targeted military transports in Germany, but also Polish civilian trains on main routes leading to Ukraine through kinetic and non-kinetic means, such as radio signals and illegal surveillance.

ACLED said that in the first half of September, Russian strikes on trains and railway infrastructure had already reached the monthly average for 2026 in attacks that are moving beyond front line areas and military logistics hubs.

This means that passenger trains, locomotives, railway workers and civilian infrastructure increasingly being hit.

Russia also recently conducted strikes on other railway stations and another locomotive in northwestern Ukraine, as well as border crossings at the Ukraine-Moldova border, which point to an expanded Russian campaign on transport infrastructure.

“The speed of the jet-powered drones and the mesh networks used for their precise remote piloting and video transmission enable this campaign, as Ukraine lacks intercepting capabilities for these new weapons,” Vlas said.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Cristina Diciu.