Marija Golubeva
The purpose of shadow warfare attacks on European countries by Russia and its proxies is multifaceted: to test the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, to destabilize societies and governments, and to provoke reactions that undermine national and European unity and institutions, including the free press and open public debate.
The scale of disruption caused by attacks ranges from small to very significant, and now spans all of Europe — from the hacktivist attack on the Millenium Bank in Portugal (2022) to the disruption of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea (2023-2024), and — possibly as a result of state action — the huge £1.9bn ($2.5bn) September’s cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover, said to be Britain’s worst-ever.
So, how is the European Union (EU) responding to the threat?
As Mark Leonard of the European Council of Foreign Relations has aptly put it, the world has entered the Age of Unpeace. Peacetime assumptions no longer hold, especially for the systems that support everyday life, such as electric grids and water supply systems. For Europe, the illusion of security crumbled the day Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While Europe is no longer living in denial of this new reality, it is still figuring out its response to it.
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