Russia's shadow war against Europe has entered a new phase in 2025, one that combines aerial incursions, maritime attacks, infrastructure sabotage, and weaponized migration into a coherent campaign of coercion. European officials report Russian fighter planes violating Polish, Lithuanian, and Estonian airspace, suspected Russian drones downed over Poland, Finland, and the Baltics, and Ukrainian-flagged cargo ships sunk by Russian drones outside Bulgarian territorial waters in the Black Sea. The pattern is no longer deniable — it is deliberate. The hybrid toolkit is broad. Latvia's ambassador to Greece, Ieva Cesniece, described armed, masked individuals on the Belarusian border escorting migrants into Latvia, threatening soldiers, crossing into Latvian territory, destroying border infrastructure, and removing surveillance equipment. Asylum seekers who tried to retreat were rounded up by Belarusian authorities and pushed back toward the border. This is not immigration — it is a state-directed destabilization operation using human beings as instruments. The maritime dimension adds a sharp economic edge. In two October operations, Ukraine accused Russia of using aerial and surface drones to sink four cargo ships just outside Bulgarian waters — an EU and NATO member state. The message: Ukraine's grain export corridor through NATO-adjacent waters is vulnerable, and Moscow is willing to demonstrate that vulnerability with lethal force. A failed August plot to destroy cargo planes at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport, later verified by the European Commission as a Russian operation, showed the campaign extends to European logistics infrastructure. The threat has escalated beyond property. Czech spy chief Michal Koudelka warned in September that Russia might attempt a military attack on a NATO member in "months, not years." Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova openly declared European defence industries supplying Ukraine legitimate targets. Representatives of five EU intelligence agencies told the Financial Times in October that Russia was seeking to "kill" European defence bosses and target their supply chains. Incendiary devices were reportedly planted in offices of defence companies Rohde & Schwarz and Helsing in Munich. Yet Europe's response remains asymmetric in the wrong direction. Officials speak of resilience — protecting data centres, telecommunications, vulnerable networks — but not of retaliation. Olena Tregub of Ukraine's Independent Anti-Corruption Commission argues European governments have failed to identify the networks behind operations, expose command structures, disrupt financing, or impose meaningful consequences. "I'm not sure Russia currently sees those costs as sufficiently high," she said. Researcher Minna Alander lists immediate options: denying Russian travel visas, retaliatory cyberattacks, interdicting the Russian oil fleet, sanctioning Chinese suppliers of defence goods to Russia. None have been deployed at scale. The deterrence deficit is compounded by Western fracture. The United States withdrew military and financial support for Ukraine in January 2025 and placed the dependability of its satellite services in doubt. In France and Germany, governments trail opposition leaders who want to stop aid entirely. Ukraine's Zelenskyy told the European Council the war will cost €155 billion ($170bn) next year and asked for at least €70 billion ($80bn) more from Europe. Former Ukrainian defence adviser Oleksandr Danylyuk proposed a punitive escalation ladder: "Each time we detect Russian intelligence operations in Europe, we will increase combined support of Ukraine 10 percent, 20 percent." No European government has adopted anything resembling this framework. The structural problem is that Russia faces no cost curve for its shadow operations. Each unanswered provocation — a downed drone, a sunk cargo ship, a sabotaged border post, an incendiary device in a defence firm — establishes a new baseline of tolerated aggression. Ukraine has performed better than expected, designing its own weapons and striking deep into Russian territory since 2023, but it cannot substitute for a European deterrence posture that does not exist. The question is not whether Europe can defend itself. It is whether the absence of retaliation constitutes an invitation.
