OverNew data suggests a troubling new phase in the Kremlin’s tactics that directly threatens the lives of Europeans.
the past three years, Russia has waged an increasingly brazen campaign of sabotage and subversion against Ukraine’s European allies. In 2024, Moscow significantly escalated its tactics—turning to assassination, compromising water facilities across several European countries, and targeting civil aviation.
Just this week, Duma member Alexander Kazakov claimed Russian sabotage in the Baltic Sea was part of a military operation aimed at provoking NATO and enlarging Russia’s control over the area. While events such as the cutting of undersea cables have garnered substantial media attention, no systematic effort has been made to assess the full scope and nature of Russia’s actions against Europe. Analysis from Leiden University exposes how far Russia is willing to go to weaken its European adversaries and isolate Ukraine from vital support. It paints a chilling picture of the potential for Russian escalation below the nuclear threshold—and underlines the need for a concerted and assertive European response, which has been lacking so far.
Just this week, Duma member Alexander Kazakov claimed Russian sabotage in the Baltic Sea was part of a military operation aimed at provoking NATO and enlarging Russia’s control over the area.
It might provoke NATO, though I have a hard time seeing Russia benefiting from that. But I don’t see how cutting cables is doing anything to enlarge Russia’s control over the area.
EDIT: Here’s the clip the article references:
https://youtu.be/HQATDINMI-M?t=281
Kazakov: From the very beginning, I disagree with the description. These stories are not about the pirates. These are clearly military stories. At a certain point in time, for us. the Baltic Sea became a theater of military operations. This was unavoidable. For us, for our country, this is a historic goal. Right now, we are carrying out one task. We are liberating the Black Sea and restoring our status as a maritime power of the Black Sea. If NATO’s plans were realized with Ukraine and Georgia, it would have been practically eliminated. We would have only one Black Sea port, Novorossiysk. They’ve already done the same with the Baltic Sea. Let’s not delude ourselves, this is NATO’s internal sea. There is a small Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg on the gulf. They’ve shut the window that Peter the Great had opened into Europe – well done, they’ve slammed it shut. Our goal is to liberate the Black Sea for ourselves. This is a theater of military operations. What’s happening is an escalation in response to Ukraine’s aggressive actions. Our people said “let’s inflict damage upon NATO”. “For example, let’s cut their cables.” Here you go, we’re cutting them!!
Kazakov: How are we supposed to liberate the Baltic Sea? We can make the Baltic Sea our own only on land – naval battles would not help us. We need part of the Baltic coast.
Kazakov: We need the Suwalki Gap from Kaliningrad to Leningrad.
I’m not sure that there’s any really cohesive position here.
Isn’t it kinda classic kgb shit to just kinda sow discord all around you as a part of your offensive strategy tho?
Honestly, while I don’t pay enough attention to Russian domestic media to have a great handle on the situation, I don’t think that this guy is actually discussing anything of that much worth. Like, my understanding is that this show – and I don’t know the name, though Julia Davis at Russian Media Monitors has translated a bunch of clips from it – is state-run stuff aimed at a domestic audience. In the past, what I’ve seen on it is basically a lot of Russian academics and legislators and stuff talking vaguely about things that Russia should maybe do. In fair part general, these involve doing unpleasant things to other countries, and in a lot of cases, I don’t think that actually doing so is a realistic option for Russia. This stuff – which is talking about annexing chunks of the EU – is actually comparatively tame – they often go in for nuking various countries. The impression the speakers give is that these are viable options, and Russia is just considering doing them, and that they’re realistically part of the discussion in Russia.
I would guess that the idea is more to promote a “Russia powerful” image to the public.
But that being said, I don’t speak Russian, so I’m dependent on the translations, and don’t have social context and such. And Julia Davis is going to be translating the exceptionally outrageous stuff that gets said on there, so so I probably don’t have a representative sample of all of their content.
I think that you could maybe derive useful information about the political environment in Russia from stuff like this – like, this is what is being put on the TV for people to watch. But I’m not at all sure that it’s actually useful to pay attention to from the standpoint of understanding actual policy in Russia.
Like, okay, take Trump/Vance talking about having the US military bomb Mexican drug cartels. They aren’t going to do that – it’s completely decoupled from US policy. But they’re happy to promote this environment of political theater because they view it as politically useful to them. They aren’t particularly interested in having an informed public involved in actual US policy – it’s fine to have people floundering around in the constant stream of horseshit that gets put out. My impression is that Russia has a lot of media that is kind of like like that, writ large. There’s this political performance aimed at a domestic audience that has little to do with actual Russian policy.
Nothing concrete, certainly, but that’s part of the point. It all seems like an exploration for various ways one can throw sand into the gears of a society without risking anything genuinely escalatory. It’s a long game.
