Russia is punching back at NATO in the shadows

Haines’s warnings about Russian sabotage were described to me by Biden administration and intelligence community officials. They wouldn’t discuss details, but media accounts show the scope of alleged Russian actions. The targets have been mostly linked to European logistical support for Ukraine.

“This is [Vladimir] Putin’s way to turn up the heat,” said a senior administration official. It’s a characteristic approach for the Russian president: Attack aggressively but covertly — to maximize the disarray and damage for his adversaries and minimize the danger to himself.

To attempt to hide its hand in the recent attacks, U.S. officials told me, Russian intelligence hired local thugs to carry out its operations.

The alleged Russian attacks span Europe: In March, Britain arrested several suspects after a fire at a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in East London that U.S. officials reported was holding communications gear bound for Ukraine. A warehouse in Spain owned by the same company, also holding communications equipment, was torched, as well.

The Russian attacks have touched key European allies of Ukraine: Last month, Poland arrested 12 suspected saboteurs who were allegedly planning attacks on supply lines to Ukraine, one official said. Also last month, a fire struck a Berlin facility of a German company owned by the maker of air-defense missiles used by Ukraine. And Norwegian authorities warned that saboteurs could target companies delivering arms to Ukraine.

The sabotage is a new turn of the screw in the increasingly deadly Ukraine conflict. According to U.S. officials, Putin worries that NATO is moving toward direct involvement against Russia, following U.S. approval of $61 billion in military aid in April and Biden’s subsequent decision to allow U.S. weapons to be fired into Russia itself. The New York Times published an early account of the sabotage effort last month.

Haines told the NATO council that Putin’s goals were to interrupt weapons deliveries, divide the alliance and deter further NATO support for Kyiv. The Russian leader wants to intimidate European countries while remaining below the threshold that might lead NATO countries to invoke Article 5 to respond militarily to attacks, U.S. officials believe.

Russian operatives might be trying to spread fear with attacks on civilian sites, as well. The Czech Republic this month arrested a suspect charged with arson against public buses. “There’s a suspicion that the attack was likely organized and financed from Russia,” the Czech prime minister said. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia was “likely” responsible for a fire last month that destroyed Warsaw’s largest shopping center.

This Russian covert campaign doesn’t appear to have killed civilians yet. But if that happens, administration officials warn that the victim nation might request urgent consultations with NATO, under Article 4 of its charter, to discuss a collective response.

The Biden administration’s strategy for countering Putin focuses on intelligence sharing. As in the early days of the war, the administration is pushing to exchange as much information as possible with allies to help them identify and disrupt attacks — and increase collective resilience. The message they want to send Russia is that the sabotage campaign won’t dissuade NATO from supporting Ukraine, and it will only deepen Putin’s troubles.

“Russia hopes to sow fear and create fissures,” said the senior administration official. “We’ve closed the space for them to do that. If they go further, it will only harden the views of NATO countries.”

While concerned by the sabotage campaign, administration officials doubt it will spiral toward an all-out confrontation. Putin doesn’t want a war with NATO that he knows he would lose, officials believe. He just wants to undermine the alliance. Administration officials don’t see this situation as similar to October 2022, when the intelligence community saw a significant possibility Putin might use tactical nuclear weapons to avert a collapse of Russia’s front lines in Ukraine and prevent a pell-mell retreat.

The Ukraine conflict keeps moving inexorably up the escalation ladder: Russia attacks, Ukraine defends; NATO pumps military aid to Ukraine, Russia responds by sabotaging NATO supply lines. Each rung higher, the danger of a misstep gets worse.