Russia steps up provocations in Europe, alarming leaders there
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Nato holding military exercises from Sept 22 to 26, with a focus on the Baltic Seas.
PHOTO: AFP
Paul Sonne, Michael Schwirtz, Lara Jakes and Steven Lee Myers
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Russia has flown drones into Poland and Romania, sent fighter jets into Estonian airspace, buzzed a German navy frigate in the Baltic Sea, and backed an aggressive shadow campaign to sway this weekend’s election in Moldova.
And that’s just in the past three weeks.
The frenzy of Russian action has prompted alarm in European capitals, where officials are worried that Moscow is stepping up its antagonism of Europe, as US resolve to counter Russia recedes under President Donald Trump.
The European jitters extended to Scandinavia this past week. Airports in Denmark and Norway shut down because of unexplained drone activity. Denmark’s Prime Minister said she could not rule out Russia as the culprit. The Kremlin denied involvement and dismissed European concerns about the other recent episodes as “exalted hysteria”.
But perhaps no country in Europe, apart from Ukraine, is feeling the spectre of Russian power at the moment more acutely than Moldova.
A parliamentary election there on Sept 28
Russia has taken aim at Ms Sandu’s pro-Europe party, unleashing a barrage of influence operations to undermine her government that has intensified with the approach of the vote.
Ms Sandu hit back in a dramatic speech this past week after Moldovan authorities detained 74 people and claimed to have disrupted a plot to incite unrest coordinated by criminal elements from Russia.
“The Kremlin believes we are all for sale, that we are too small to resist, that we are not a country but a territory,” Ms Sandu told Moldovans on Sept 22. “But Moldova is our home, and our home is not for sale.”
Kremin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded by accusing her of suppressing the votes of Moldovans who want closer relations with Moscow.
Experts view the spate of Russian moves as provocations to probe for potential weaknesses and assess Europe’s responses.
“There does seem to be a feeling that something has shifted,” said Mr Eric Rubin, a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis in Washington and former US ambassador to Bulgaria. “I would suspect that this is a testing phase.”
A trying moment for Nato
Last week, days after the drone incursion into Poland, Italian F-35 fighter pilots scrambled over the Gulf of Finland
The Russian jets, which had disabled their radio transponder devices, were intercepted as soon as they entered Estonia’s airspace, said Colonel Gaetano Farina, the Italian commander of the Nato task force patrolling the airspace.
The two Italian jets rocked their wings, an internationally known manoeuvre to signal that they were intercepting the Russians. He said the Russian pilots then allowed the Italian planes to escort them back into international airspace and over the Russian border in Kaliningrad.
While the Russian fighters were in Estonia’s airspace – about 8km deep, at one point – the Italian pilots assessed what weapons the Russian jets were carrying, Col Farina said. He said they were air-to-air missiles, not bombs, a distinction that Estonian officials have said led them to conclude that an attack on the country’s population was highly unlikely.
Russia has denied that it left international airspace, infuriating Estonian officials, who have warned that Russia’s invasion might not stop at Ukraine. Estonia shares a 294.5km border with Russia.
Already, faint fault lines have begun to emerge in Europe over how to respond to Russia.
This past week, Mr Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign Minister, threatened military action against any Russian aircraft that strayed into Polish airspace in the future.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, however, said shooting down Russian planes would be unhelpful and warned fellow Nato countries not to fall into a Russian “escalation trap” set by President Vladimir Putin.
“Prudence is not cowardice, but rather, responsibility towards your own country and towards peace in Europe,” Mr Pistorius said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the United Nations on Sept 27, said that any aggression against his country “would be met with a decisive response”.
The nervousness in Europe stems in part from questions about whether the United States, the guarantor of Western Europe’s security since World War II, would respond to a Russian attack under Mr Trump, a long-time sceptic of Nato.
Mr Trump lifted the spirits of European leaders this past week by calling Mr Putin’s forces a “paper tiger”
Mr Trump also said Nato countries should down Russian aircraft that violate their airspace. But when pressed on whether he would back a Nato member that did so, he said: “That depends on the circumstances.”
European allies want more unwavering support than that.
Mr Zygimantas Pavilionis, Lithuania’s former ambassador to the US and now an MP, said Mr Trump’s warm welcome of Mr Putin during a summit in Alaska in August led only to escalation from Moscow, with increased missile attacks on Ukraine and now, incursions into Nato territory.
“I always defend America,” he said. “But I need some action from my beloved America.”
Moldova crossroads
In Moldova, Ms Sandu’s pro-Western political movement has prioritised accelerating the nation’s path to the EU, holding a referendum that approved EU membership in 2024 and pressing through reforms to qualify for it.
Ms Sandu, a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has angered Moscow with her pro-Europe stance and aggressive moves to end the Kremlin’s longstanding influence in Moldova.
Russia sees the elections in Moldova as an opportunity to damage one of the most pro-Western leaders in what the Kremlin views as its rightful sphere of influence, analysts said.
The small nation has become the latest, most active front in Russia’s years-long effort to denigrate Western democracy and promote Moscow-friendly leaders.
Moscow operated similar online influence campaigns during recent elections in Germany and France.
Though Ms Sandu is not on the ballot, her party risks losing its majority. That would deal a blow to the EU and usher in political uncertainty that Moscow could exploit.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reduced Moscow’s influence across other post-Soviet countries, including Moldova, where the government accelerated its march towards the EU and broke economic ties with Russia, said Ms Anastasia Pociumban, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
Moscow sees the election as an opening to reverse the trend.
“Russia is weaker now as a geopolitical actor, but wants to retain Moldova in its sphere of influence,” Ms Pociumban said.
Ms Sandu’s government has accused the Kremlin of planning to spend €100 million (S$151 million) to finance political campaigns, spread disinformation and organise protests to challenge the outcome of the vote.
In previous votes, Moldovan authorities have accused Russia-linked networks of offering voters bribes.
A day after Ms Sandu’s speech, Russia’s foreign intelligence service issued a statement claiming that European forces were planning to invade and occupy Moldova to enforce a “Euro-democracy” dictatorship led by Ms Sandu following the election.
Western analysts saw the statement as Russia projecting its own possible intentions onto Europe and stoking fears among Moldovan voters of being dragged into the Ukraine war. Russia-linked accounts online claimed falsely to have photo evidence of French forces already arriving.
The Kremlin denied Ms Sandu’s accusations and accused her of silencing the legitimate views of pro-Russia Moldovans.
According to NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation, posts about these narratives have garnered at least 17 million views since July.
Mr Oleg Matveychev, an MP from the ruling United Russia party, encapsulated the Kremlin’s messaging, warning that Moldova’s vote will decide whether the country becomes a “second Ukraine”.
Moldova’s economy has struggled amid the war in neighbouring Ukraine, with the pro-Russian opposition looking to harness those economic woes as a protest vote.
Mr Maksim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, said: “The main aim of Russia in Moldova currently is to use these local contradictions and problems, which are quite numerous, to slow down Moldova’s integration with Europe.”
He said Moscow wants to drag Moldova back into the “geopolitical grey zone”. NYTIMES
