Escalating Russian Hybrid Warfare and Policy Responses in Europe

New analysis warns Russia is likely to escalate its opportunistic hybrid activity in Europe into a more coordinated campaign consistent with New Generation Warfare (NGW) doctrine, integrating cyber operations, influence activity, and sabotage across a broader geographic footprint and at higher tempo. The assessment anticipates more synchronized, multi-domain actions designed to degrade NATO cohesion and readiness—such as pairing physical disruption (for example, airspace violations affecting critical infrastructure like airports) with cyberattacks (for example, DDoS against communications) to amplify operational and psychological impact.

Ukrainian officials are simultaneously pushing for tighter regulation of Telegram, citing its repeated use by Russian intelligence to recruit locals for sabotage and terrorist attacks; the calls followed a deadly incident in Lviv that Ukrainian leadership attributed to Russia and said involved recruitment via Telegram. Separately, polling across major NATO countries indicates strong public support for treating severe hybrid actions—such as cyberattacks that shut down hospitals or power grids and sabotage of undersea cables or energy pipelines—as acts of war, highlighting a growing gap between public sentiment and NATO governments’ typically restrained responses to hybrid aggression.