Europe Is Asking the Wrong Question About Russia’s Hybrid War

This op-ed was originally published in Foreign Policy on October 22, 2026

Europe is asking the wrong question about Russia’s hybrid campaign. As the attacks escalate, the debate has turned to what to call them—acts of war, state-sponsored terrorism, or something else. This talk about terminology reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the threat. 

Over the past months, Russia’s pressure on Europe has changed in two ways. First, the attacks have become more frequent and moved toward the kinetic end of the spectrum: drones, explosives, sabotage of critical infrastructure. Second, Moscow has become visibly less careful about preserving plausible deniability, which has long been considered a defining feature of hybrid operations.

On Sept. 1, Germany announced that Russia was behind a failed attempt to strike a Ukraine-bound cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport with explosive-laden drones in August. Days later, a Russian frigate fired flares at a Danish military helicopter in the Baltic, and a drone likely carrying explosives was shot down over Lithuania. On Sept. 13, a Russian drone hit a train at Yahodyn, a village just on the Ukrainian side of the Polish border, minutes after another train carrying former European leaders—including former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt—had pulled out. A strong case can be made that these actions were an openly aggressive answer to Berlin. The message to Germany and Europe is simple: Moscow does not care about being named. It wants Europe to know it is responsible, because it is betting that Europe’s response will only highlight its weakness.

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