Russia is escalating its dangerous shadow war against NATO, and there are fears it could get a lot worse

• Russia is believed to be behind dozens of hybrid attacks on NATO going back years.
• These incidents — part of a so-called shadow war — have escalated since the invasion of Ukraine.
• NATO is now surging its efforts to respond to the attacks and monitor threats to infrastructure.

Far beyond the front lines in Ukraine, Russia is waging a different kind of warfare against NATO. It is a covert, low-intensity conflict with serious consequences.

Moscow has long been waging a shadow war against the military alliance, but the war in Ukraine has led to an escalation of hybrid, or gray-zone, attacks on NATO since the conflict began.

“It’s definitely escalating from where it started and where we are now,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, who recently stepped down after four years as Lithuania’s foreign minister, told Business Insider. A longtime critic of Russia’s destabilizing hybrid warfare activities, he said that Moscow’s ambition has grown, and its approach has become increasingly more aggressive.

The uptick in gray-zone attacks has raised concerns among current and former NATO and European officials that these activities could trigger more catastrophic outcomes, especially if deterrence efforts are insufficient.

“I believe they are accelerating,” Philip Breedlove, a retired US Air Force general and a former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told BI. “As long as they are working and there is little or no consequence to the antagonist, why would they not?”

‘There’s no incentive for them to stop’

Russia’s hybrid warfare tactics emerged years ago, but they have become significantly more common occurrences since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Since then, European countries have experienced many attacks and sabotage attributed to Moscow. These range from arson and signal jamming to assassination attempts and hacks.

The US Helsinki Commission, an independent government agency, has identified some 150 hybrid operations on NATO territory over the past three years that have been linked to Russia. These acts include critical infrastructure attacks, campaigns of violence, election interference, and weaponized migration.

The commission said in a report released last month that Russia is carrying out a shadow war on NATO in tandem with its war in Ukraine to “destabilize, distress, and deter” the alliance in order to negatively impact support for Kyiv.

But Russian activities are about more than Ukraine. James Appathurai, NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general for innovation, hybrid, and cyber, said the Russian hybrid tactics and strategy predate the war and will continue long after it ends because Moscow views the West as an unacceptable obstacle to its great-power ambitions.

“It is an inherent part of Russian strategic thinking. The military is only part of it,” Appathurai, the NATO secretary general’s primary advisor on hybrid threats, told BI. “Their aim is to achieve political victory using the full spectrum of tools.”

Not only are hybrid attacks on the rise, but Russia is also showing an increasing appetite to risk the lives of civilians in NATO countries, Appathurai said. A mass-casualty incident is among his biggest fears.

The most recent high-profile hybrid attack occurred just a few weeks ago, in late December, when several underwater cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. Authorities suspect an oil tanker dragged its anchor along the seabed to damage a Finnish-Estonian power line and four telecom cables.

Finland seized the Eagle S tanker and prohibited the crew from leaving its territory. The vessel, flying the Cook Islands flag, is believed to be part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” a collection of hundreds of ships that Moscow uses to move oil and circumvent sanctions on its energy exports.

Critical undersea infrastructure, like the underwater cables facilitating massive amounts of global data transmission, is especially vulnerable to sabotage. There have been several incidents in recent months, as well as others in the past, and military leaders have long worried about the threats to these lines.

James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral who previously served as the commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told BI that Finland acted in defense of its sovereignty by detaining the ship accused of damaging the cables. He said responses to future assaults on critical undersea infrastructure “must be bold and have consequences for the perpetrator.”

He wasn’t alone on that point. Gray-zone tactics below the threshold of armed conflict can be difficult to respond to, but there’s an argument that NATO needs to be more aggressive in punishing the Kremlin because it operates under the assumption that the alliance is too passive.

“We already know that Russia is taking these actions on us in hybrid space,” Breedlove said, adding that NATO needs to take actions in response and “increase the cost on Russia, or else there’s no incentive for them to stop.”

‘They control the escalation’

Beyond the physical damage some of the hybrid attacks have caused, there’s a psychological element at play. Russia’s actions have stoked anxiety, particularly among the front-line NATO countries which long warned of Moscow’s malign activity, that the alliance could fail to deliver a sufficient response.

In the aftermath of the Eagle S incident, NATO countries have taken various steps to address hybrid attacks and the threats to critical infrastructure.

The British government said earlier this month that it deployed a UK-led reaction system to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the shadow fleet. Last week, the White House announced sanctions on more than 180 vessels in the fleet. (The European Union had already blacklisted some 80 ships.)

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the start of a new operation that will see the alliance enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea with warships, patrol aircraft, and naval drones.

Speaking to reporters, Rutte said, “We are also working with allies to integrate their national surveillance assets with NATO, ensuring comprehensive threat detection.”

But these increased patrols may not be enough to eliminate the threat entirely, and they’re not cheap. Foggo said bad actors wield a “cost-imposing strategy” on NATO by raising the price of protecting undersea infrastructure.

Still, the sweeping new measures appear to signal a new and more thorough approach from NATO as the Russian threat grows amid the grinding Ukraine war, nearing the start of its fourth year.

Appathurai said “time will tell” whether efforts like increased patrols and sanctions on the shadow fleet will be enough to protect NATO from Russian activities. However, he emphasized that these steps are significantly more robust than what the alliance has done in the past, thanks to political will and new technology. He also said member states would be firmer in their response to attacks, as Finland showed by seizing the Eagle S.

“We’re satisfied that these are sufficient steps for now,” he said. NATO also has other lines of efforts; for instance, it turned to special operations divers to test new protections just last fall.

NATO has also been strengthening its defenses against more conventional threats, beefing up its military presence throughout the eastern alliance members, specifically the Baltic states, which are considered to be the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the hybrid campaign shows no signs of slowing down as Russia looks to exert its influence over the continent. Landsbergis warned that in doing so, Moscow is “recreating the geopolitical environment” in which it operates.

“Now, they control the escalation in Ukraine — in the West — with everything that they do,” he said. “As long as we stay silent and quiet and timid, not wanting to react, not wanting to escalate, and talking about de-escalation, this is the perfect environment for the Russians.”