Šakalienė warns Russia is preparing for a wider conflict

Russia’s increasingly dangerous actions in Europe reflect a calculated preparation for a possible conflict rather than mere boldness, former Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė told LRT.lt.

She said Russia had deliberately crossed a threshold by treating the appearance of explosive devices and injuries to civilians as an acceptable cost of its war against Ukraine and pressure on NATO.

According to Šakalienė’s analysis, Russia’s hybrid operations are being conducted along three geographical vectors: maritime intelligence gathering in the north, hybrid pressure and tunnel digging along the eastern border, and physical sabotage from within European countries.

She said the incidents form a consistent chain, including drones near European airports and military bases, damage to undersea cables, the movement of migrants across the European Union’s borders and cyberattacks. The incidents have taken place in 20 European countries and have been reported publicly.

Šakalienė said Russia crossed a line in 2025, when its attacks became more dangerous. She cited a drone carrying explosives that flew into Lithuania from Belarus in the summer of 2025. Earlier incidents had been less dangerous, including intensive distributed denial of service attacks by the Killnet group against Lithuanian state institutions and critical infrastructure in June 2022, after Lithuania announced restrictions on Russian transit, and the migrant crisis launched by Belarus at the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia in 2021.

In May, a Russian drone struck an apartment building in the Romanian city of Galați, near the Ukrainian border, injuring people.

“Boldness is an emotional category. Russia’s actions reflect not emotions, but cold calculation. Analysis of the incidents shows that the change in Russia’s behaviour is a deliberate and measured decision,” Šakalienė said.

The number of recorded Russian attacks in Europe rose more than tenfold from 2022 to 2024, from three to 34 incidents, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The International Institute for Strategic Studies has estimated that Russian sabotage operations targeting Europe’s critical infrastructure increased fourfold in 2024 compared with the previous year.

Šakalienė said Russia was conducting a coordinated hybrid offensive against NATO and European Union countries across several areas, seeking to paralyse civilian systems and weaken defence capabilities before a possible conventional conflict.

She said incidents involving the covert surveillance and sabotage of allied reinforcement routes at ports and on railways showed that Russia was preparing systematically. Russia was also testing NATO’s nuclear deterrence and disrupting communications to assess how quickly they could be restored, she said. Instrumentalised migration and arson attacks were among the measures aimed at undermining the functioning of key state systems.

Šakalienė identified 2027 to 2029 as a critical vulnerability period, when US air defence stocks could be depleted by other global conflicts while European industry had not yet completed its rearmament.

She said NATO should standardise authorisation to shoot down Russian objects across the alliance before its next summit, establish a 12-hour standard for attributing incidents and begin measuring the cumulative impact of Russia’s attacks.