{"id":483317,"date":"2025-10-08T15:53:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483317\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T15:53:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:53:20","slug":"drone-dilemma-how-russias-hybrid-war-is-using-fear-to-destabilise-europe-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483317\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone dilemma: How Russia\u2019s \u2018hybrid war\u2019 is using fear to destabilise Europe | World news"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Munich airport had to close<\/a> on 2 October after a suspected drone incursion, dozens of flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers left stranded on the eve of a German national holiday and the famous Oktoberfest.<\/p>\n

A week earlier, Copenhagen and Aalborg airports<\/a> were closed following sightings of \u201cunmanned aerial systems\u201d in Danish airspace. In the month since a swarm of Russian drones violated Polish airspace \u2013 three were shot down<\/a> \u2013 a rash of similar incidents has been reported across Germany, the Baltic and Nordic countries, often over power plants and military bases.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s alleged \u201chybrid war\u201d has suddenly begun to feel a bit close for comfort for many Europeans: potentially reaching into cities a long way from the frontline, comfortably untroubled \u2013 until now \u2013 by the fallout from the war raging in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Public anxiety is mounting, particularly at Nato\u2019s borders, reported Daniel Boffey and Miranda Bryant<\/a> earlier this week \u2013 the strange red lights that people on the west coast of Norway keep seeing are a new source of collective stress. Their feature found echoes in history of what is now happening: Soviet \u201cghost planes\u201d caused panic in the 1930s and UFO sightings were common in subsequent decades.<\/p>\n

Suspicion that the Kremlin is orchestrating a shadow war of sabotage and subterfuge<\/a> on Europe is not new, although Moscow denies it. Fiona Hill, the former White House Russia adviser, warned in June that Russia was \u201calready at war with Europe\u201d<\/a>. But the latest drone episodes suggest a gear change; that Russia is accelerating the hybrid campaign in daring new ways. Moscow may be using oil tankers from its illicit \u201cshadow fleet\u201d, for example, as a launchpad for drones<\/a>, including those that forced Denmark to close its airports.<\/p>\n

Challenges in defending the grey zone<\/strong><\/p>\n

All eyes on deck \u2026 the Swedish coastguard to patrol an area that has become a hybrid warfare battleground. Photograph: Josefine Stenersen\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

How do European leaders reassure anxious citizens when they themselves lack any certainty about how to respond? \u201cOur police must be able to shoot drones down immediately,\u201d the Bavarian premier Markus S\u00f6der demanded after the Munich incident. Poland\u2019s government has adopted similarly robust rhetoric.<\/p>\n

But shooting down airspace violators, is not always lawful \u2013 or desirable. Nato\u2019s European leaders have a particularly difficult tightrope to walk in calibrating their response to ambiguous incursions that fall short of outright military aggression \u2013 activity in the so-called \u201cgrey zone\u201d.<\/p>\n

The attacker\u2019s identity is not always clear. Is it a hostile rogue state or a criminal entity? Nobody wants to be provoked into escalation against a nuclear armed superpower. Yet, doing nothing is not an option either. An overwhelming majority of EU citizens say they want their leaders to unite to protect them from security threats, polls show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The latest threats are, instead, exposing deep divisions. The resulting perception of weakness, wrote Paul Taylor<\/a>, risks emboldening Vladimir Putin to prod further.<\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen presented plans for a \u201cdrone wall\u201d \u2013 an integrated detection, tracking and interception system to defend Europe\u2019s \u201ceastern flank\u201d \u2013 at an EU summit in Copenhagen last week<\/a>. But the shrill discussion that reportedly unfolded behind closed doors suggests the drone wall is not imminent. Neither Friedrich Merz nor the (domestically embattled) French president Emmanuel Macron showed any support. Italy\u2019s Giorgia Meloni complained that southern Europe was being neglected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worse the situation becomes, the less able they seem to make any decisions,\u201d says Taylor. A lack of mutual trust is now exacerbated by fears that the US cannot be relied on to help, he explained.<\/p>\n

Armed with psychology<\/strong><\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Weaponising panic \u2026 Russia\u2019s drone attacks could scare us into losing faith in our authorities and in liberal democracy. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters<\/p>\n

In the longer term, responding to the hybrid war is as much about psychology as beefing up the armed response capability, some experts believe. \u201cThese attacks have two aims,\u201d says Elisabeth Braw, a Swedish security expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. \u201cThe first is disruption. The second is to confuse and scare us so we lose faith in our authorities and in liberal democracy. If our systems are too weak to keep us safe, people may conclude, what are they for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProvocations are attractive [to Russia] because they cause chaos and disharmony,\u201d she says. \u201cUltimately the hope is to get people to flirt with autocracy. It is deeply subversive.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by carefully anticipating the chaos around any future disruptive incident, the appeal for the perpetrator can be reduced, Braw argues. Governments in western and southern Europe are \u201cpretty unprepared\u201d. They should learn from Baltic and Nordic states, both in planning and communicating openly<\/a> that they are doing so. \u201cWe may have to close an airport, but we can still show everyone that life keeps going, no matter what tricks they try on us. We can react in a way that minimises panic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hostile grey zone attacks are not just about drones. \u201cImagine if all of our supermarket chains were taken out of action by cyber-attacks at the same time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Miika Ilom\u00e4ki, chief preparedness specialist for Finland\u2019s National Emergency Supply Agency, detailed the country\u2019s stockpiling strategy<\/a> in the Guardian recently. But Braw says some governments have a deep fear of causing people to panic by discussing threats. \u201cThe reality is we will have to face panic at some point, so it is better to talk openly about how we are going to manage. We should have learned that lesson from the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Munich airport had to close on 2 October after a suspected drone incursion, dozens of flights were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-483317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115339356180131985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}