For months now, Europe has been buzzing with reports of suspicious drones, cyber incursions, and shadowy “ghost fleets” of Russian oil tankers evading sanctions. In Brussels, Berlin and Copenhagen, politicians frame these incidents as hybrid warfare, while Moscow either denies involvement or smirks in silence. Yet beneath the headlines lies a deeper question: is Europe truly grasping Russia’s strategy, or is it trapped in its own narrative of fear, propaganda and Russophobia?
RICARDO MARTINS | CURITIBA, BRAZIL
LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT | NEWS ANALYTICS
a 5 mins read.
Russia’s fingerprints have long been associated with cyberattacks across Europe. According to the EU’s cybersecurity agency ENISA and NATO’s own reporting, recent years have seen multiple high-impact attacks on critical infrastructure, hospitals in Germany and France, energy grids in Poland, and government networks in the Baltics.
In 2023, the Russian-affiliated group Killnet launched DDoS attacks on airports and parliaments, while in 2024, a ransomware wave targeted Danish and Swedish logistics firms, disrupting European supply chains. A DDoS attack, or distributed denial-of-service, is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic.
Utilities and critical infrastructure remain the primary target. Water systems in France, railway signalling in Germany, and even satellite links used by Ukraine but hosted on European servers have been disrupted. These attacks are rarely sophisticated on a technical level but devastating in their timing and scale, sowing doubt in public services and political decision-making.
DRONES IN THE SKY
In parallel, drone incursions have unnerved Europe. Drones were spotted or intercepted over Polish farmland, Romanian oil refineries, airports in Denmark, Germany and Belgium, and even Norwegian offshore platforms. Yet confirmation that Russia is behind all these incidents is still lacking.
Most never carried explosives; they were cheap, commercially modified devices, often “unclaimed” by any actor. Yet the European Commission now treats them as hostile probes, with Ursula von der Leyen pushing for a €1.5 billion “drone wall” along the eastern flank.
NATO’s military committee in Riga recently declared that “every threat to NATO’s air, land and sea space will be dealt with a resolute response,” but according to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), no real action has been taken because of doubts about whether Trump would back them.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen went further, telling the Financial Times that Europe is already in a “hybrid war.” Her choice of words matters: in Copenhagen, where EU leaders gathered under heavy security, the drone narrative dominated, overshadowing even Ukraine’s EU accession and frozen Russian assets.
Trump’s Greenland ambitions expose NATO’s fragility, highlighting U.S. unpredictability. Russia exploits hybrid warfare, using drones and cyberattacks to test NATO’s cohesion, leaving Europe divided, hesitant, and vulnerable.
BEHIND RUSSIA’S PROVOCATIONS?
For the European leaders gathered in Copenhagen on 1 October 2025, Russia’s use of drones and cyberattacks is not random harassment but a deliberate grey-zone strategy: cheap provocations that force NATO into costly responses, as Loss explains.
By intruding into NATO airspace and disabling airports or logistics through cyber probes, Russia exposes gaps in European defence and intelligence, testing how far the alliance is willing to go.
Frederiksen warns that this is “only the beginning” of a hybrid war aimed not at conquest but at destabilisation, sowing doubt, and dividing European societies.
To enforce its agenda, Moscow benefits from cost asymmetry: a less than €50,000 Geran drone can force NATO to fire a €1 million missile, multiplying the strain on European defence budgets. Moreover, every cyber intrusion and aerial provocation doubles as intelligence-gathering, offering Russia insights into NATO’s readiness, command structures, and political hesitation.
NATO struggles because Europe remains split between states that see Russia as an existential threat and those that see it as a distant problem. Into this uncertainty comes Donald Trump: his revived rhetoric about “buying” or even “taking” Greenland from Denmark, a NATO and EU member, corrodes trust in U.S. leadership and backing.
For Copenhagen, this complicates the credibility of NATO guarantees: how can Denmark rely on its main ally while Washington eyes part of its sovereign territory? Russia surely sees opportunity in this ambivalence: Trump’s Greenland ambitions underscore that NATO unity is fragile and that U.S. priorities certainly do not align with European security. Thus, drones and cyberattacks are not about military gain but about stressing the layers in NATO’s fabric, showing Europeans they cannot rely fully on Washington. In this sense, Russia’s hybrid warfare exploits not just technological asymmetry but also the political vacuum created by U.S. unpredictability, leaving Europe hesitant, divided, and easier to weaken.
RUSSIA’S REAL AGENDA
What does Russia actually want? Not, as some fear, to invade Berlin or Paris. As Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani bluntly put it, “Putin doesn’t want World War III.” Russia’s true goal is subtler: to keep Europe distracted, divided, and economically drained. By pushing cheap provocations, drones, cyber probes, and military jets brushing NATO airspace, Moscow ensures Europe spends more on defence and less on social welfare, infrastructure and competitiveness. Already, €800 billion is earmarked for defence over the next four years, while pension reforms and welfare cuts sweep the continent.
Europe debates seizing €140 billion Russian assets, building a costly “drone wall,” and intercepting Russia’s sanction-evading ghost fleet—moves raising legal, political, and geopolitical dilemmas, including India’s.
This dynamic benefits both Moscow and Donald Trump’s Washington. Trump, whose influence looms over NATO through its new Secretary-General Mark Rutte, wants Europe to pay more for its own defence, especially by buying American arms, while remaining dependent on U.S. strategic leadership.
For Putin, the revenge motive is strong. After the Cold War, Russia sought integration with Europe, from joining NATO and the European Union to creating a “common market from Vladivostok to Lisbon.” Rebuffed and patronised, Moscow turned eastwards, building ties with China and India. Now, Putin’s agenda is not to conquer Europe but to make it irrelevant, politically divided, economically uncompetitive, and socially fractured.
EUROPE’S COUNTERMOVES
Europe is not totally passive. Three initiatives stand out.
- Frozen Russian assets: Around €140 billion held in European banks are earmarked for Ukraine’s defence. Legal challenges abound, and central bankers warn it could erode global trust in the euro.
- Drone wall: Brussels wants a “multi-layered zone” of anti-drone systems along the eastern flank. Germany, France and Italy hesitate, preferring national control, while the Nordics and Baltics demand urgency.
- Ghost fleet interception: Europe is alarmed by Russia’s “dark fleet” of 800 oil tankers sailing under shifting flags to bypass sanctions. Yet maritime law complicates interception, although France has done it. For India, a major buyer of discounted Russian oil, Europe’s policing of sea routes raises difficult questions: Could Delhi find itself inadvertently drawn into Europe’s sanction wars?
The Copenhagen summit revealed more fractures than resolutions. Leaders squabbled over who should control defence projects, the European Commission or national capitals, and how to use frozen assets. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary continued blocking sanctions, while Germany pushed its own deregulation agenda.
For his part, Putin, in his speech at the Valdai Club annual meeting, called concerns that Russia would attack NATO “nonsense,” accusing Western elites of stoking hysteria to justify military build-ups.
Russia’s hybrid warfare will remain Europe’s “new normal”—cheap cyber and drone provocations draining resources, inflating defence costs, eroding welfare budgets, and driving unsustainable debt burdens across the continent.
India’s Dilemma
Europe often presents itself as a “geopolitical garden,” as Josep Borrell famously said. Yet in reality, the EU is trapped by its own illusions and by the conflicting agendas of mid-power states, Hungary vetoing sanctions, France dreaming of “strategic autonomy,” Britain clinging to its imperial past, and Poland and the Baltic States calling for NATO dominance. The continent oscillates between U.S. dependency and internal paralysis.
Propaganda exacerbates this paralysis. As German scholar Hans-Georg Moeller of the University of Macau argues, Europe’s “innocent arrogance”, a moral superiority complex, blinds it to new global geopolitical realities.
While China, India and others advance, Europe builds victimhood narratives and spends its political capital on symbolic gestures against Russia that weaken its own welfare state, lead to social unrest, and create geopolitical irrelevance.
For India, the European debates matter. On the ghost fleet, Europe’s attempts to police tanker traffic clash with India’s interest in cheap Russian oil. Delhi risks secondary sanctions or strained EU ties. Yet India also sees opportunity: if Europe seeks partners beyond the U.S. orbit, India could position itself as a pragmatic interlocutor, bridging between sanctions-hardened Russia and a resource-hungry Europe.
BETWEEN HOPE AND DECLINE
Looking ahead, asymmetric warfare, cyber intrusions, drone swarms, and economic disruption will likely remain Europe’s “new normal.” It is cheap for Russia, exhausting for Europe. Each drone shot down costs thousands or even millions, and each cyberattack demands millions in defensive upgrades. Meanwhile, the public is nudged to accept defence budget hikes at the expense of welfare and unsustainable public debt.
Europe faces stark choices. It can continue down its current path, fragmented, drained by military spending and submissive to the U.S., or it can recalibrate, recognising that Moscow’s provocations are less about conquest and more about manipulation.
Independent voices suggest Europe must resist propaganda, regain pluralism, and pursue pragmatic diplomacy, including with India, a rising power that values multipolarity. Whether European leaders dare to step outside their cognitive warfare bubble remains uncertain.
For now, drones buzz in the skies, cyber intrusions sparkle on government screens, and ghost tankers sail the seas. The provocations may be small, but their cumulative effect is huge: keeping Europe on edge, overspending on security, sowing division, and drifting towards irrelevance on the global chessboard.
(Ricardo Martins. PhD in Sociology, specialising in international relations, geopolitics, and Latin American politics. He recently completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and covers major developments in Latin America for News Analytics. The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The News Analytics Herald.)
Key Takeaways
- Russia deploys drones, cyberattacks, and ghost fleets as low-cost hybrid warfare.
- NATO’s deterrence weakens amid European disunity and U.S. unpredictability.
- Moscow’s aim: distract, divide, and economically drain Europe, not invade.
- EU countermeasures—frozen assets, drone wall, ghost fleet tracking, lack unity.
- India sees both risks and opportunities in Europe’s sanctions and oil politics.
