Russia is using border incursions and information tactics to sow confusion and indecision among Nato states, researchers warn
Russia is setting the stage for a war with Nato through a blend of border incursions and informational tactics designed to cause chaos, experts have said.
Drone flights into European airspace and media campaigns are nothing new for Russia, but the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes Moscow has recently launched its “phase zero” preparations for a wider conflict beyond Ukraine.
A drone incursion into Poland in September marked the beginning of “phase zero”, an American military term meaning Putin has begun creating the informational, political, and psychological conditions for a future war on Nato.
Russia is also using a varied arsenal of tactics to sow confusion and possible friction among European leaders, meaning boots-on-the-ground warfare may no longer be needed to achieve Putin’s ambition to split Nato, the ISW said.
But other experts believe Russia’s current blend of border incursions and informational warfare means that a land war with Nato is unlikely.
Russia has dismissed claims that it is preparing an assault on the alliance. On Friday, its foreign ministry accused Nato of fearmongering after a German general said Russia could launch an attack “as early as tomorrow”.
Beyond ‘hybrid warfare’
To understand the intent behind Russia’s tactics, leaders and analysts must do away with the broad term of “hybrid warfare”, according to Christina Harward, the ISW’s Russia deputy team lead.
This term is often used to describe Russia-linked drone incursions – recently in Spain, Norway, and Poland – but allows Moscow plausible deniability because these tactics are not being seen as the precursor to a potential war and causes confusion as to what should cause a Nato response, Harward said.
She told The i Paper: “It’s muddying the conversation, creating these debates within Nato states about what warrants a response. These weren’t hybrid attacks; they were just attacks.”
Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte, meeting Romanian President Nicușor Dan last week, advised against using the “strange” term to refer to Russian activity.
“The word is a bit strange,” he said. “We have seen assassination attempts, we have seen in some countries the jamming of commercial airplanes, which could pose great risks, of course, to commercial aviation, and we have seen an attack on the NHS in the United Kingdom.
“So I don’t like the word hybrid too much, but it is the accepted word.”
Russia’s use of covert, sometimes inexplicable breaches of foreign airspace is designed to sow confusion and uncertainty among Nato leaders, Harward said.
“Russia just needs to create situations that spark debate within the alliance and destroy the united response that is the backbone of Nato. If the unity is gone, they could try to destroy the entire alliance,” she said.
Dr Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher at King’s College London’s War Studies department, believes these incursions are having such a destabilising effect on Nato that a step beyond “phase zero” is unlikely.
She told The i Paper: “Nato is being hamstrung by its own inefficiency when it comes to bureaucratic procedures, and as long as the Russians can keep them busy – with incursions or without incursion, with intelligence operations, sabotage and things like that – it’s fine, because they know this is not going to invoke Article 5. In this ‘grey zone’, it’s quite safe to operate.”
But Harward thinks Putin’s increasing use of unconventional methods means he could advance from phase zero soon after an end to the war in Ukraine.
Russia testing Nato borders
The sheer volume of the Russia-linked airspace violations following the drone flight into Poland is forcing Nato to second-guess which of these are a genuine threat.
Last week, UK intelligence and Nato officials told The i Paper that Russia is believed to be behind drone incursions into Europe from Russian-linked cargo ships in the North Sea.
In February, The i Paper revealed that three people with links to Russian military and intelligence sites travelled to stay near top-secret UK air bases where suspicious drones were sighted, with one of the individuals just metres from the perimeter of RAF Mildenhall on a day when drones were flown over.
The revelations show why concerns are growing within Nato and Europe over the way Putin is becoming emboldened in his aggression against the continent.
Harward said secretive Russian incursions are designed to raise the bar of events that merit Article 4, the lever by which a Nato state calls all other members to discuss a threat to its security.
How does Nato defend itself?
Any member state can use Article 4 to discuss issues of concern – typically threats to its security – with the council of Nato.
This can then lead Nato to trigger Article 5, which allows the body to respond to attacks.
Article 5 states that an attack against one member will be considered as an attack against all.
It has only been triggered once, following the 9/11 attacks.
Poland triggered Article 4 following the Russian drone incursion in September, only the eighth time it has been used since Nato was formed in 1949.
Ukraine is not yet a member of Nato, but the organisation has said the country is on an “irreversible path” to membership.
She added: “There’s been this discussion about whether Nato should stop invoking Article 4, because there’s this idea that invoking it repeatedly makes it somehow lose its significance and meaning.
“But the issue is that Russia keeps doing things that meet the criteria to invoke Article 4.”
The UK military has deployed a specialist counter-drone unit to support Belgium’s defences after its airspace was breached by drones suspected to be Russia-owned.
The ISW also highlighted a raft of smuggler balloons carrying cigarettes across the Belarusian border into Lithuania.
Harward said: “This is another case where they’re doing something that seems really innocent, which gets lost in the conversation, but it is causing problems.”
Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė warned that it will start shooting down these balloons, after 544 were recorded so far this year, with 966 sighted in 2024.
The ISW said this activity could be replicated on Belarus’s border with Poland.
These tactics, along with “little green men” – sightings of unmarked soldiers who Russia deny ownership of – are designed to “muddy the waters” and test the response time of Nato states, Harward said.
Another analyst believes Russia is acting more deliberately than simply “mischief making”, using targeted incursions rather than a blanket strategy meant to provoke a war.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor emeritus at King’s College London’s War Studies department, told The i Paper that the presence of suspected Russian drones in Belgian airspace came in direct response to EU plans to hand seized Russian assets, worth up to £121bn, to Ukraine.
He said: “Russia may believe at some point they’re going to get into a war with Nato, but I don’t think they’re actively seeking one. If they can’t beat Ukraine, I can’t see how they’re going to manage to cope with Nato as well.”
While these tactics may not be meant as a precursor to war, Sir Freedman warned they could backfire.
“At one level they’re trying to control the escalation, but you’re still playing with weapons, and something can always go wrong.
“If people get killed, then you’ll get much more serious responses [from Nato].”
Russia’s information ‘tentacles’
Alongside physical incursions into Nato territory, Russia’s phase zero relies heavily on its presence in the informational and political environments of member states.
“The Russian information space doctrine, or information war, is about protect[ing] your own information space and destabilis[ing], creat[ing] chaos in the information space of your adversary,” Dr Miron said.
The strength of Russia’s informational front means a land invasion of the Baltics would be no more necessary than it is politically sensible for Moscow, she suggested.
In fact, Nato risks overlooking Russia’s exploitation of other fronts – such as sabotage and cyber operations – if it fixates on a future Baltic invasion, she believes.
Dr Miron added: “It’s quite a comfortable space, because information weapons and psychological operations [are] much more powerful in subverting public opinions in the West.”
But Harward told The i Paper: “They’ve got these informational tentacles reaching into every quarter they can in the informational space within these different states.
“Russia’s modus operandi is to identify existing cracks and make them deeper.”
These informational tactics can take root in the Russian diaspora, but Moscow has recently become adept at exploiting political frictions in a wide range of Western states.
Most recently, Russia has focused on exploiting historical tensions between Poland and Ukraine over the Volhynia massacre.
Between 1943 and 1945, as many as 100,000 Poles were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists, and Russian information operations have sought to present Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as being in denial about the massacre.
Moscow is also attempting to inflame tensions around the influx of Ukrainian immigrants into Poland following the full-scale invasion, in a bid to decrease popular support for Ukraine, the ISW said.
Last month, The i Paper revealed that Russia uses disinformation campaigns to direct the flow of migration in a bid to spike tensions across Europe.
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As drone incursions and sabotage are aimed at creating indecision at the top level of Nato states, these informational campaigns try to spread this confusion among the public.
Alongside these unconventional tactics, Russia is also strengthening its traditional firepower, Harward said, with the use of its long-range Shahed “suicide” drones up 300 per cent on last year.
Harward said: “It would be to their advantage to replicate the debate going on in the highest levels of government within the population itself. Because that’s going to make decision making within individual states even more difficult.”
