Russia becomes more aggressive in hybrid attacks on West - NATO Senior Representative
This was stated by the NATO Senior Representative to Ukraine, Patrick Turner, who spoke in an interview with Ukrinform.
"More recently, we've seen a more aggressive, more active, and more overt Russian use of hybrid tactics, including sabotage, cyberattacks, instrumentalizing migration, attacking critical national infrastructure, threatening undersea infrastructure, and so on," the diplomat said.
Russia has been challenging, country by country, “a set of democracies, which wish Russia no ill at all”.
“But Russia keeps challenging, interfering, and engaging in illegal activity in those countries, including unwanted espionage," the senior NATO representative emphasized.
According to Turner, by intensifying hybrid tactics against the Allies after the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas, Russia made a mistake.
"When another country – whether it's Russia or somebody else (like China which has also done some unwanted meddling in other countries) – starts interfering in various ways in other countries, seeking to undermine them, that eventually alerts those targeted countries to the fact that Russia is a problem for them as well, not just for the nations bordering Russia or just for Ukraine," Turner said.
Answering a question of how exactly the Alliance intends to fight against the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks, the diplomat said NATO had agreed on a set of possible measures that could be taken against the background of such interference.
"This might be intelligence sharing, this might sometimes be merely exposing those attacks, talking openly about them, shaming those responsible. Also, there are protective measures in the cyber domain or underwater infrastructure, as well as on the further restriction of Russian intelligence operatives. Some measures might be taken collectively or by Allies individually. But if countries launch deliberate attacks in our countries then they have to pay a price, and this goes for Russia and any other actors involved," Patrick Turner emphasized.
At the same time, such actions on the part of Russia will not deter NATO from supporting Ukraine, the diplomat emphasized.
"We will continue to protect our territories and populations against any kind of hostile actions. We also welcome the EU’s new sanctions targeting hybrid threats, announced last week," said the NATO Senior Representative to Ukraine.
As reported, EU High Representative Josep Borrell believes the Russian imperialist war against Ukraine proved the need for priority development of the European defense industry and applied technology. This war is actually seen as an existential threat to the European Union, Borrell wrote in his blog posted on the website of the EU External Action Service.
