U.S. and Europe worry Russia is testing NATO with hybrid attacks and sabotage

After the discovery of an explosive drone at Leipzig/Halle airport in August, German authorities publicly blamed Russia — a step European leaders had previously hesitated to take. “It was very clear. The evidence was there, what happened,” Kallas said in an interview from the EU office near the United Nations. Officials said that if the drone had exploded, it would have caused major damage and could have killed civilians, as USA Today reports.

In recent years, Russian submarines have attempted to damage critical undersea cables in the Arctic, Russian drones have repeatedly violated the airspace of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, while Polish authorities blamed Russia for a suspicious fire at a factory producing weapons for Ukraine. A Russian drone recently hit a train on the Ukraine–Poland border, narrowly missing a train carrying European politicians and diplomats.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on September 23 that Washington is concerned Russia’s war in Ukraine could spread to neighboring European countries. “Whether through a hybrid attack, whether through a sabotage attack, whether through a misunderstanding,” Rubio said, “a pilot goes in the wrong direction, and suddenly we have active fighting.” The Danish Defense Intelligence Service said on September 24 that there is “a low but growing risk that Russia will launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries bordering Russia.”

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, condemned the Russian campaign during a Security Council session on September 23, warning about violations of NATO airspace. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said there is no evidence that Moscow is preparing a full military attack against NATO, but called for a strong public response: “attribute, more sanctions, respond.”

The escalation comes at a fragile moment: the Pentagon is considering reducing the U.S. military presence in Europe, while President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals — he has signed a law for new sanctions against Russia and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a capable leader, but at the same time has invited Putin to the G20 summit in Miami. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder warned that fear of escalation has undermined deterrence itself: “No matter what the provocation, we have been more worried that this will lead to a war than we are in sending Putin the message that we have serious red lines that we keep.”

NATO treaty’s Article 5 requires all members to treat an attack against one ally as an attack against all. Kallas said that if the U.S. makes it very clear that Article 5 stands, “then the Russians know what they are risking: full war with Europe.”