What’s driving Russia to escalate its hybrid attacks on Europe
From sabotage, arson and assassination attempts to blowing up trains, the campaign is no longer just about harassment.
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The aftermath of a Russian drone strike on a train in Ukraine near the border with Poland on Sept 12.
PHOTO: AFP
By every logical measure, Russia should be in no position to provoke more fights. Its army has already been stuck in Ukraine for years, losing more men each month than it can recruit. Ukrainian drone attacks have cut its refining capacity so badly that the world’s great fuel exporter is now importing petrol. And with crude above US$100 a barrel, the country’s economy is still spluttering.
Yet it is precisely what President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has done. On Sept 13, a Russian drone hit a rail junction in Yahodyn, a Ukrainian outpost a mere 2km from the Polish border, just missing a train carrying Boris Johnson and Carl Bildt, the former British and Swedish prime ministers, as well as the serving national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy; David Petraeus, a much-decorated US general and former CIA boss, was still at the station.