30 November 2024

Europe is under attack from Russia. Why isn’t it fighting back?

LAURA KAYALI, DIRK BANSE, WOLFGANG BÜSCHER, ULRICH KRAETZER, UWE MÜLLER and CHRISTIAN SCHWEPPE

If not for a delay in a connecting flight, the incendiary bomb would likely have burst into flames in the belly of a plane flying high above the European Union.

Instead, it ignited on the ground in Germany’s Leipzig airport, setting fire to a DHL air freight container.

Western intelligence officials believe the attack, which took place in July, was a trial run by Russian agents who planned to place similar bombs on flights to the United States.

“We have been observing aggressive actions by the Russian intelligence services for some time now,” said Thomas Haldenwang, who recently stepped down as president of Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency.

“Russia is using the entire toolbox, from influencing political discussions to cyber attacks on critical infrastructure to sabotage on a significant scale,” he said.

The Kremlin has long carried out so-called hybrid warfare against European countries, including disinformation campaigns, hacking, cyberattacks and election interference to destabilize European societies and, in the past few years, push them to decrease military support for Ukraine.

Last week, Germany said that two undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea were severed as a result of sabotage.

“We have to conclude, without knowing exactly who did it, that it is a hybrid action and we also have to assume — without knowing it — that it is sabotage,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

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