Drone incursions into Poland. Fighter jets in Nato airspace. Little green men —notorious for their role in the Russian take-over of Crimea more than a decade ago — in a remote corner of Estonia. Election interference in Romania and Moldova. These are just a few examples of the tools Russia has been using in the past few weeks as part of a much broader strategy variously referred to as the Gerasimov doctrine, non-linear war, or new-generation warfare. What lies behind these terms is the very worrying and very real “weaponisation of everything” in Moscow’s strategy to reshape international order.
As a foreign and security policy, this kind of hybrid warfare predates the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. It was most obvious in Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. But it has intensified since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The spectrum of policies the Kremlin pursues includes information operations, such as propaganda and disinformation campaigns. It involves attacks on critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables or the use of drones to disrupt air traffic, and malicious cyber-attacks. There have also been assassination campaigns against defectors and dissidents, for example in the UK. Last year, a murder plot against the CEO of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, was foiled by US and German intelligence services.
While struggling to retain its traditional influence in post-Soviet regions like the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Russia has also sought to extend its influence elsewhere, such as in Latin America or Africa. But the main focus of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare campaign is Europe, which has become a key battleground in Moscow’s attempts to restore Russia to its erstwhile great-power status and reclaim a Soviet-style sphere of influence.
At the heart of these efforts is the war against Ukraine. For Russia, victory in this war is more than the mere military defeat of Ukraine and the permanent weakening of the country along the lines of Moscow’s frequently stated war aims, which include the annexation of one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, limits on the country’s armed forces, and preventing it from joining Nato. While clearly important for Russia, such a victory simultaneously needs to signal its own omnipotence — to prevail over a Nato- and EU-backed Ukraine — and western impotence to prevent Ukraine’s defeat.
The Kremlin needs to weaken the west in order to win the war against Ukraine.
In this sense, the intensification of the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Kyiv’s European allies is a tool Moscow uses as part of its broader war effort. But weakening the west is also an end in itself, because a strong EU and Nato alliance would prevent Russia from reclaiming its sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe.
While Europe may only be slowly rising to the challenge of upping its defence game against Russian aggression, the simple numbers do not favour Russia: the size of the EU’s economy is roughly ten times the size of Russia’s, and its population is more than three times that of Russia.
The EU’s defence expenditure in 2024 stood at just under $400 billion, up 19% from 2023, and equal to 1.9% of member states’ GDP. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia, by comparison, spent $145 billion, or (an ultimately likely unsustainable) 6.8% of its total GDP. In terms of purchasing-power parity, Russia still marginally out-spends the EU, but not if non-EU Nato members like the UK and Norway are factored into the equation.
So far, Russia has not been able to decisively out-perform Ukraine’s military on the battlefield.
With the transatlantic alliance — and hence US support — still by and large intact and a more assertive coalition of European allies backing Kyiv emerging, this is unlikely to change soon. That is why Russia employs its wide range of hybrid warfare tools against European societies: to sow doubt over their ability to prevail, to cause perceived hardship that makes supporting Ukraine unattractive, and to support populist allies who promote pro-Russian narratives, be they government parties in Hungary or Slovakia or opposition parties in Germany and elsewhere.
From the Kremlin’s perspective, the logic is likely very simple: using the full spectrum of hybrid warfare signals sufficient Russian capabilities and the will to deploy them that makes the costs for supporting Ukraine unacceptable for Europe. With European support ebbing away, Russia will either defeat Ukraine outright on the battlefield or force the country into humiliating concessions. Either outcome will damage European credibility and morale and allow Moscow to set the terms of a reshaping of the continent’s security order along the lines of one of the Kremlin’s favourite talking points — indivisible security.
Belaboured again by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in his speech at the annual meeting of the Valdai discussion club – a gathering of Russian and pro-Russian foreign and security policy analysts – indivisible security simply means a prioritisation of Russian interests over those of its neighbours, in other words a western recognition of a Russian sphere of influence.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that recognising such a Russian sphere of influence would satisfy the Kremlin today in the same way as it may have satisfied Soviet rulers during he cold war.
On the contrary, a Russian victory in and beyond Ukraine would most likely encourage dreams of further expansion. In fact, as some of Russia’s leading foreign policy thinkers put it in this year’s annual report of the Valdai club, the very purpose of war may have changed from victory to “maintaining a balance necessary for a period of relative peaceful development”.
If turned into actual policy, the kind of hybrid warfare the Kremlin has pursued against Europe for more than a decade, becomes a permanent feature of Russia’s relations with Europe. This is a vision that exposes the limits of Russia’s aspirations – managing chaos and loving disorder – and the dangers they imply for the rest of the world.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on October 16, 2025.
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