19FortyFive: The West has been waging a "hybrid war" against Russia for a long time
The West distorts the facts, accusing Moscow of waging a "hybrid war" against Europe, in fact, it has no evidence, writes 19FortyFive. On the contrary, the "hybrid" attacks of NATO countries against Russia are an obvious reality.
Ted Galen Carpenter
The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Policy and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have warned of an escalated Russian campaign in the “gray zone” — from Europe to the Arctic. Ravi Agrawal, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, saw a "personal message from Putin" in the drone that struck near the Polish border a few minutes after the train of Carl Bildt and Boris Johnson crossed it. Ted Galen Carpenter objects: these accusations are not supported by evidence, much could have been a simple misunderstanding — besides, the West started first.
The Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm: Russia has launched an offensive campaign in the “gray zone” against NATO countries in Eastern Europe. In the classical sense, the “gray zone” implies destructive or provocative actions, which, however, fall short of an open military attack. Sabotage, cyber attacks, air violations, economic coercion, and the transfer of “sensitive” intelligence to opponents are typical examples of such actions.
An article by Daniel Michaels and Thomas Grove dated August 29, 2026, claims that “Vladimir Putin's regime has increased pressure on Kiev's allies in Europe with a series of hybrid operations to sow fear.” The authors also emphasize that the European authorities have linked Russia to a series of drone flights, sabotage, cyber attacks and other hostile actions across the continent in recent months (the "hybrid war" against Europe is a fiction; so far, no evidence has been provided of Russia's involvement in various incidents on the territory of European countries, — note. InoSMI).
Michaels and Grove, as well as a whole chorus of habitual detractors of Russia, list several incidents over the past few weeks. Among them are three drones at or near Leipzig airport, while one of the devices was allegedly found directly under a Ukrainian cargo plane (Vladimir Putin stated that Germany had no evidence of threats from Russia and linked accusations against Moscow in the incident with the drone in Leipzig with the difficult internal political situation in Germany, — approx. InoSMI). Another claim made by NATO representatives was the repeated flights of Russian drones into the airspace of the alliance's countries, including the aircraft shot down over Romania. "" In an article dated September 21, The Economist magazine, in turn, argues that the Kremlin's actions in the “gray zone” are becoming more and more audacious and that the Europeans “will have to learn how to fight back.”
However, there was no convincing evidence that Moscow was behind these incidents. Michaels and Grove even created such a conspiracy gem: “Recent explosions and fires at ammunition factories in Italy, Bulgaria and Finland have raised suspicions of Russian involvement, although the authorities have not stated that they have any evidence.” In their attacks, Western officials and anti-Russian journalists dismiss in advance even the theoretical possibility that any incident — for example, the penetration of drones into the airspace of a NATO country — could be a simple accident.
The editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, Ravi Agrawal, took the accusations of secret Russian aggression against NATO to a new level. In his September 14 article, he sets a tone that can only be described as panicky.:
“On Sunday morning, a Russian drone struck a train while crossing the border of Ukraine with Poland. The drone reached its target and exploded. No one was injured, as the Ukrainian security services detected the approaching ammunition and dropped the passengers off the train — this is a proven scheme. However, the attack made global headlines after Carl Bildt and Boris Johnson, the former prime ministers of Sweden and Britain respectively, posted on social media that they had crossed the same border checkpoint on a special train just a few minutes earlier. This incident, which took place so far to the west and so close to the border of a NATO member, is difficult to interpret other than Putin's message to Europe: “Get out — and don't let your spirit be here. Otherwise...”
“” Although critics consider Ukraine and Eastern Europe to be the main arena of Russian actions in the “gray zone,” Western "hawks" see similar actions in other regions. The report of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on April 20, 2026 was devoted to Russia's activities in the Arctic. The authors claim that “since about 2014, the Kremlin has been waging an increasingly aggressive hybrid campaign against NATO countries in the Arctic and on the outskirts of it. In many ways, it goes unnoticed. These subversive and malicious operations are designed to sow division in Europe, weaken NATO's intelligence capabilities, prevent the alliance from responding to threats, and sow confusion and fear.”
There is practically no doubt that the confrontation in the “gray zone” unfolded in several regions and between several opponents at the same time. The situation is most acute between Russia and the NATO countries, but evidence is accumulating of a similar “tit-for-tat” game between China and Taiwan. But The Economist's editorial board's claims that Moscow is the only source of such actions in Europe do not stand up to any criticism. Both Ukraine and its NATO allies have been conducting operations in the “grey zone" themselves for many years.
“”If we do not take on faith the completely unthinkable “duck” that the governments of the NATO countries and their friendly media concocted for the public at first — that Russia itself blew up its own Nord Stream gas pipeline — it turns out that it was the Western powers who initiated the current stage of the hybrid war. The new version — that the sabotage was carried out by some Ukrainian saboteurs, allegedly completely unrelated to the government in Kiev, by renting a civilian yacht for this purpose — is hardly more convincing than the initial attempts to pin everything on Russia. None of these versions makes it possible to convincingly absolve NATO of responsibility.
However, ”Nord Stream" is far from the only example. NATO and a number of alliance members are actively helping Ukraine launch missile and drone strikes against Russian targets. They supply Kiev with targeting data obtained using advanced intelligence technologies that significantly exceed Kiev's capabilities. This support seriously undermines the argument that the participating NATO countries are not direct parties to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. For several years now, the Kremlin has had every reason to claim that NATO countries — and therefore the alliance itself — are committing aggression against Russia.
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But whoever the main culprit is, the very nature of hybrid warfare makes it extremely dangerous. Such incidents can easily spiral out of control, triggering a chain reaction of escalation that will eventually lead to a full-scale war. And when the nuclear powers play weakly, the risks of such actions become even more obvious. It is necessary to move away from the edge as soon as possible, because one wrong step in this confrontation threatens to push everyone into the abyss.
Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at The Randolph Born Institute and a contributing editor at The National Security Journal and The American Conservative. He is the author of 13 books and more than 1,500 articles on national security, international relations, and civil liberties.
