Russia: already at war with Europe?

“Russia is at war with Europe,” said Ivo Daalder on Politico. It has been attacking Ukraine for over a decade now, “with increasing ferocity since its full-scale invasion in 2022”. Now, though, it is increasingly waging a “wider war”. Until recently, European nations have preferred to see Moscow’s operations – “the assassinations, cyberattacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns” as falling into “a grey zone beneath the level of armed conflict”.

But over the past month, its escalating incursions have become hard to ignore. Russian drones have been launched at Poland and Romania. Fighter jets have invaded Estonian airspace. Russian aircraft have buzzed a German frigate in the Baltic. Unidentified drones have brought Danish airports to a standstill. Europe’s leaders are slowly starting to recognise the reality. “We are not at war,” said Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, this week, “but we are no longer at peace either.”

‘Systematic disruption’

“Russia’s aim is to sow division,” said Edward Lucas in The Times. It is in “some difficulty” in Ukraine. Its offensive has stalled. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries are causing fuel shortages and growing economic pain (VAT is set to rise). But instead of coming to the table, Vladimir Putin is “cranking up attacks on Ukraine’s European backers”. He hopes that “systematic disruption” will convince many Europeans that the price of helping Ukraine is too high. Sending jets into Nato airspace is designed “to plant corrosive, highly specific dilemmas in our minds”. Are we really willing to risk war with Russia over a sliver of northern Estonia? Would the US back up its Nato allies? Until it meets solid resistance, Russia “will seek to intimidate us”.

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Still, it’s hard to calibrate the response, said Taz Ali in The Independent. It’s one thing for Poland, with its large air force, to promise to shoot down any Russian jet in its airspace. But are the Italian fighters patrolling the Baltic really going to call Putin’s bluff?

‘Invoking war’?

Russian subversion and sabotage certainly pose a threat, said Mark Galeotti in The Spectator. But is the situation “apocalyptic” enough to merit the word “war”? So far, the main costs to Europe’s nations have been “airport delays” and “essentially trivial Russian airspace violations”. The truth is that both Russian and Western leaders are “invoking war” for political ends.

In Russia, as the economic costs begin to mount, claiming that the nation is at war with Nato helps to make sacrifices more “palatable”. It’s the same story in the rest of Europe. It’s clear that Donald Trump expects Europeans to foot the bill for Ukraine’s conflict. The talk of war makes it easier to “accept the price to be paid”.